Jensen La Vende

High Court Judge West­min James has or­dered that a de­part­men­tal or­der is­sued on how po­lice of­fi­cers are as­sessed for pro­mo­tion is il­le­gal and with­out mer­it.

The judg­ment was hand­ed down yes­ter­day, af­ter 30 of­fi­cers sued the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice over what they said were un­due de­lays in their pro­mo­tion from con­sta­bles to cor­po­rals. While most of the of­fi­cers were pro­mot­ed be­fore the rul­ing, James found there was un­due de­lay in pro­mot­ing the of­fi­cers.

He or­dered that the de­ci­sion of the Com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice and the Pro­mo­tion Ad­vi­so­ry Board (PAB) to utilise De­part­men­tal Or­der 93 of 2021 in the as­sess­ment and pro­mo­tion was un­law­ful, il­le­gal, ir­ra­tional, pro­ce­du­ral­ly im­prop­er, null, void and of no ef­fect.

The de­part­men­tal or­der in­clud­ed the years of ser­vice in the TTPS and not just the pre­ced­ing 12 months as man­dat­ed in Reg­u­la­tion 71(3) of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions. Ac­cord­ing to the reg­u­la­tions, per­for­mance ap­praisals must on­ly con­sid­er the pre­ced­ing 12 months of ser­vice and not pri­or years. The or­der was al­so in place for con­sta­bles to cor­po­rals.

In his 26-page rul­ing, James or­dered that the PAB com­pile and sub­mit to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, a re­vised Or­der of Mer­it List us­ing the prop­er cri­te­ria to re­flect the prop­er rank­ing of the claimants with­in three months of the or­der.

“I al­so award the claimants who have not been pro­mot­ed but would have been pro­mot­ed if the prop­er cri­te­ria was used to be award­ed dam­ages to be as­sessed by a Mas­ter for the loss of op­por­tu­ni­ty,” James said.

The of­fi­cers claimed that they were prej­u­diced from be­ing pro­mot­ed up to two ranks be­cause of the de­part­men­tal or­der, de­spite hav­ing suc­cess in the pro­mo­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tion. They al­so sub­mit­ted that some of­fi­cers, who are ap­proach­ing re­tire­ment age, al­so lost out on pen­sion ben­e­fits which they may have ac­crued had they been ap­point­ed to the rank of sergeant.

The law­suit was brought by WPC Jen­nifer Sanchez, in March 2021. Her af­fi­davit was used as the cat­a­lyst for the oth­ers. In it, she claimed that while she was suc­cess­ful in the pro­mo­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tion, she was not con­tact­ed by the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the PAB to be in­ter­viewed for pro­mo­tion.

In her af­fi­davit, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who at the time was DCP in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Op­er­a­tional Sup­port and chair of the PAB, said there were sev­er­al rea­sons the PAB did not con­duct in­ter­views and as­sess­ments for of­fi­cers who be­came el­i­gi­ble for pro­mo­tion from 2008 on­wards.

She ex­plained the de­lay in con­ven­ing, say­ing that there were le­gal chal­lenges and is­sues faced by the PAB in its com­pli­ance with oth­er court or­ders. She added that in March 2022, the PAB in­ter­viewed some 461 cor­po­rals for pro­mo­tion to sergeant with­out us­ing De­part­men­tal Or­der No 93 of 2021 as part of the as­sess­ment process.

Sanchez and the of­fi­cers were rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, Leon Kalicha­ran, Ter­ry Boy­er, Lana Lakhan, Ka­ri­na Singh, Vashisht Seep­er­sad and De­sirée E Sankar. The PAB and the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice were Vanes­sa Gopaul, Al­lan­na Ri­vas and Faith Walke.