A woman po­lice con­sta­ble (WPC) has been giv­en the green light to sue the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Ex­am­i­na­tions Board over its move to re­scind its de­ci­sion to al­low her to sit a pro­mo­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tion sev­er­al months af­ter she com­plet­ed it. 

High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in grant­ed WPC Eli­cia Sama­roo-Ali leave to pur­sue her ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against the board and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice ear­li­er this month. 

Ac­cord­ing to her court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Sama­roo-Ali ob­tained a BSc in In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems and Man­age­ment be­fore join­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in Jan­u­ary 2019. 

Af­ter com­plet­ing her one-year pro­ba­tion, Sama­roo-Ali ap­plied to the board to be a can­di­date in pro­mo­tion ex­am­i­na­tion for the rank of cor­po­ral. Her ap­pli­ca­tion was ini­tial­ly ap­proved and she sat the ex­am­i­na­tion, which she even­tu­al­ly passed in Sep­tem­ber last year. 

In May, the TTPS’s hu­man re­source de­part­ment con­tact­ed Sama­roo-Ali and said she had been al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in er­ror, as the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions on­ly al­lows of­fi­cers with three years ser­vice to be el­i­gi­ble for pro­mo­tion. 

In the law­suit, Sama­roo-Ali’s at­tor­neys are con­tend­ing she could have sat the ex­am­i­na­tion de­spite hav­ing no prospect of be­ing pro­mot­ed due to her lack of ex­pe­ri­ence. 

“Be­ing con­sid­ered for pro­mo­tion is not the same thing as be­ing al­lowed to sit a pro­mo­tion ex­am­i­na­tion,” they said. 

“Hence, a con­sta­ble can pass the pro­mo­tion ex­am­i­na­tion with­in his first three years but he may on­ly be con­sid­ered for pro­mo­tion to the rank of Cor­po­ral af­ter he com­plet­ed three years as a con­sta­ble,” they added, as they claimed she had a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that her re­sults would stand. 

Through the law­suit, Sama­roo-Ali is seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions that her le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion had been breached and she was treat­ed un­fair­ly. She is al­so seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions that her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty had been breached and com­pen­sa­tion for such. 

At­tached to the law­suit was an af­fi­davit from Sama­roo-Ali, who is cur­rent­ly as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch. In the doc­u­ment, Sama­roo-Ali said she was deeply trou­bled and dis­ap­point­ed by the board’s de­ci­sion. 

“I have al­ways tried to ex­cel in the TTPS in the dis­charge of my du­ties, progress my ca­reer and pro­vide for my daugh­ter while pro­vid­ing an ex­am­ple for her to fol­low. I wrote the Cor­po­ral ex­am­i­na­tion as a step­ping stone to ad­vance my ca­reer and bet­ter my life,” she said. 

Sama­roo-Ali is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram and Vishaal Siewsaran.