Fran­cis Joseph

A fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer found favour yes­ter­day with the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil, which de­scribed a 47-year-old reg­u­la­tion, threat­en­ing dis­missal of women who mar­ry in the Po­lice Ser­vice, as "a rel­ic of a by­gone age." Al­though the Law Lords found that the law was valid and con­sis­tent with the T&T Con­sti­tu­tion, they hoped that some­thing be done to re­move that piece of leg­is­la­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Lord Rodger, "Like the Court of Ap­peal, the board can­not part with the case with­out ex­press­ing the hope that steps will soon be tak­en to re­move Reg­u­la­tion 52 (of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Reg­u­la­tions). Coun­sel for the State made the point that "there was no sign that they had ac­tu­al­ly been used in prac­tice, or would be used in the fu­ture." Lord Rodger con­tin­ued: "If that is re­al­ly so, it is all the more re­mark­able that the State has de­fend­ed them so tena­cious­ly, right the way up through the courts to this board.

"The sim­ple fact is that they are a rel­ic of a by­gone age. The board re­spect­ful­ly rec­om­mends that their con­tin­ued in­clu­sion in the rel­e­vant reg­u­la­tions should be re­viewed." There are many women in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice who are mar­ried, ei­ther to po­lice­men or men out­side the ser­vice. There are more than 1,000 fe­male po­lice of­fi­cers in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. Jo­sine John­son had filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, chal­leng­ing Reg­u­la­tion 52, be­cause it dis­crim­i­nates un­fair­ly against women in the Po­lice Ser­vice. On April 11, 2006, Jus­tice Carl­ton Best dis­missed the mo­tion. The Court of Ap­peal, com­pris­ing Jus­tices Mar­got Warn­er, Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo, and Al­lan Men­don­ca, dis­missed John­son's ap­peal in 2008. John­son ap­pealed to the Privy Coun­cil and the mat­ter was heard be­fore Lords Rodger, Walk­er, Collins, Kerr and La­dy Hale on Oc­to­ber 20.

She was rep­re­sent­ed by Sir Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye, SC, Al­lan New­man, QC, and Anand Ram­lo­gan, while Pe­ter Knox, QC and John Almei­da, ap­peared for the AG. In her af­fi­davit be­fore the court, John­son, a di­vorcee with a grown son, wrote: "I am present­ly in­volved in a sta­ble, se­ri­ous re­la­tion­ship. I have been con­sid­er­ing the ques­tion of mar­riage, but I am de­terred by the fact that if I did, in fact, re­mar­ry, I would be at great dis­ad­van­tage be­cause of Reg­u­la­tion 52. "I would very much like to re­mar­ry, but do not wish to be li­able to, or in jeop­ardy be­cause of Reg­u­la­tion 52. "I do not wish to cre­ate an ad­di­tion­al pos­si­ble ground of ter­mi­na­tion by virtue of mar­riage. I am a fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed woman and would want to de­vote time to my fam­i­ly oblig­a­tions. "I have, thus far, cho­sen to re­main un­mar­ried or di­vorced, be­cause I do not wish to sub­ject to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an ad­di­tion­al ground of ter­mi­na­tion which does not ap­ply to un­mar­ried women po­lice of­fi­cers."

Lord Rodger, in his judg­ment, said there was no doubt that the reg­u­la­tion was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry. He said the reg­u­la­tion was, in­deed, typ­i­cal of mea­sures used to dis­crim­i­nate against mar­ried women. John­son had ar­gued that there was dis­crim­i­na­tion by rea­son of sex, ef­fect­ing her right to equal­i­ty be­fore the law. But the Law Lords did not find favour with the ar­gu­ment. They said the reg­u­la­tion had been in ex­is­tence since 1962, and was deemed to be valid­ly-made and had full force even be­fore the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion in 1976. The Lords said the reg­u­la­tion was nev­er chal­lenged un­der the 1962 con­sti­tu­tion. Yu­clan Bal­want, a pub­lic health in­spec­tor, em­ployed with San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, al­so chal­lenged Reg­u­la­tion 58 of the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (SASC), on the same ground of fear of get­ting mar­ried. The Privy Coun­cil's judg­ment yes­ter­day al­so af­fect­ed her.