Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
Three T&T Defence Force (TTDF) recruits have failed in their bid to be confirmed pending the determination of their lawsuit over being ejected after completing basic training.
Delivering a ruling on Wednesday, High Court Judge Frank Seepersad refused to grant an order allowing Jamari Chacon, 23, Jarren Coombs, 24, and 24-year-old Kavelle Serette to “pass out” with their fellow recruits during a ceremony carded for Saturday.
Justice Seepersad said that there was a greater risk of prejudice to the TTDF if the stay was granted and he later ruled that its decision to block the trio was not irrational.
“The integrity of the institution and the public confidence that only persons of the highest integrity are enlisted is of paramount importance,” Justice Seepersad said.
“There is ample information in the public domain as to the disastrous consequences which flow when ill-suited persons are enlisted into the security forces. They present a clear and present danger,” he added.
He noted that if the trio was eventually successful in the case, they could be retroactively enlisted and be compensated for any mental anguish they claimed they suffered and they could prove.
In their court filings, obtained by Guardian Media, the trio’s lawyers claimed that they sought employment from the TTDF in a recruitment drive, last year.
They claimed that their clients began four months of intense basic training in January and completed it last week Thursday.
The following day, the trio was called into a meeting with the TTDF’s human resource personnel who questioned them over polygraph tests they underwent when they applied to be police officers previously.
Chacon and Coombs said that they never received the results of the test but assumed they failed as they were not contacted for the next stage of the T&T Police Service (TTPS) recruitment process.
Serrette admitted that he failed the test in 2021 but passed it when he took it again, last year.
The trio’s lawyers claimed that after they made the admissions, they were coerced into signing documents before being informed that they were dismissed from the TTDF due to “irregularities in vetting”.
In the lawsuit, the trio’s legal team contended that the TTDF’s decision was unreasonable, irrational, unfair, and breached the principles of natural justice.
Through the lawsuit, the trio is seeking a series of declarations over what transpired and an order quashing the decision to discharge them.
Their lawyers are also claiming that if the case is determined in their clients’ favour after they turn 25-years-old and can no longer enlist, they should each be paid $1.78 million in compensation which represents the salary and benefits they would have received had they not been discharged.
The trio was represented by Arden Williams, Mariah Ramrattan, and Anthony Moore.
Guardian Media understands that they had not filed an appeal challenging Justice Seepersad’s decision on the stay, up to late yesterday.