Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A man from To­ba­go has failed in his le­gal chal­lenge over not be­ing al­lowed to com­plete train­ing to be­come a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cer af­ter med­ical and psy­chi­atric ex­am­i­na­tions.

In a re­cent judg­ment, High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed dis­missed the law­suit brought by the man, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to the na­ture of the case deal­ing with his med­ical con­di­tions.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that the de­ci­sion to stop him from con­tin­u­ing the re­cruit­ment process was not un­law­ful and un­rea­son­able based on con­cerns raised in the as­sess­ment.

“Hav­ing re­gard to the psy­cho­log­i­cal and med­ical ev­i­dence be­fore the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and to the na­ture of the du­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with ser­vice as a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Of­fi­cer, the de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the Claimant’s train­ing fell well with­in the range of rea­son­able re­spons­es open to the de­ci­sion-mak­er,” he said.

In June 2014, the man saw a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment for SRPs and ap­plied.

He pre­sent­ed him­self to re­cruit­ing per­son­nel at the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion and was suc­cess­ful­ly screened.

He passed a writ­ten ex­am­i­na­tion and then un­der­went med­ical and psy­chi­atric tests.

Sev­er­al months lat­er, he went to be­gin train­ing. Al­though his name was not on the list of re­cruits, the man was al­lowed to train for sev­er­al days be­fore be­ing told he could not con­tin­ue.

He was lat­er in­formed that the de­ci­sion was based on the tests iden­ti­fy­ing that the man had di­min­ished cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing, de­pres­sive symp­toms and mild car­diomegaly.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that he did not have a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that he would be al­lowed to con­tin­ue train­ing based on him be­ing al­lowed to briefly par­tic­i­pate de­spite not be­ing on the list.

“This ‘mis­take’, though un­for­tu­nate for the Claimant, does not give rise to a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion sub­stan­tive­ly or pro­ce­du­ral­ly,” he said.

He found that there were valid grounds for stop­ping his train­ing and the de­ci­sion was not an abuse of pow­er or un­rea­son­able.

“The de­ci­sion was made pur­suant to the Com­mis­sion­er’s statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and was based on rel­e­vant med­ical ev­i­dence bear­ing di­rect­ly up­on the Claimant’s ca­pac­i­ty to per­form the du­ties for which he was be­ing as­sessed and trained,” he said.

He al­so point­ed out that the man nev­er chal­lenged the find­ings from the ex­am­i­na­tions.

The man was rep­re­sent­ed by Ken­neth Thomp­son, while Ke­l­isha Bel­lo and Nisa Sim­mons rep­re­sent­ed the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.