The In­dus­tri­al Court has thrown out an ap­pli­ca­tion to stop the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing project. The pres­i­dent of the court, Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix, re­ject­ed the doc­u­ments filed by the pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Sgt Anand Rame­sar. The court nev­er­the­less said the project may be il­le­gal as the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) was not brought in when the terms and con­di­tions of the project were be­ing draft­ed. But Thomas-Fe­lix said ap­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ing to po­lice labour can­not be brought against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice but in­stead must be brought to the CPO.

It took just un­der an hour for the spe­cial tri­bunal, com­pris­ing Thomas-Fe­lix, the court's vice pres­i­dent Ram­c­hand Lutch­me­di­al and the chair­man of the Es­sen­tial Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Ver­non Ash­by, to con­clude that the doc­u­ments pre­sent­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tion were not prop­er­ly filed and there­fore the court could not hear the mat­teR. On March 20, the as­so­ci­a­tion sent Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, which was signed by sec­re­tary of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Sgt Michael Seales. Seales led Rame­sar in the mat­ter. Both are at­tor­neys. Rame­sar ap­peared as the ap­pli­cant. Gibbs, who was not present, was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, and Ger­ald Ramdeen.

The CPO al­so was sent a a let­ter of no­tice but was not rep­re­sent­ed. Sift­ing through the bun­dle of doc­u­ments, Thomas-Fe­lix said she was "per­plexed," and told Rame­sar what had been pre­sent­ed was a claim form like those pre­sent­ed in the High Court. She asked Rame­sar what the sub­stan­tive claim be­fore the court was be­cause there were no doc­u­ments in­di­cat­ing the claim, and even if the as­so­ci­a­tion were to take the mat­ter to the High Court, a state­ment of claim al­so must al­so be pre­sent­ed.Ex­am­in­ing the doc­u­ments pre­sent­ed, Thomas-Fe­lix read: "You are a com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go? Is that cor­rect?" Rame­sar replied that it was.

Thomas-Fe­lix asked whether the as­so­ci­a­tion was a com­pa­ny or a recog­nised, reg­is­tered as­so­ci­a­tion. Rame­sar then agreed that it was in fact the lat­ter. Say­ing that the court had "so many con­cerns," Thomas-Fe­lix ques­tioned whether an as­so­ci­a­tion could in fact bring an in­junc­tion against the po­lice com­mis­sion­er. Thomas-Fe­lix asked: "You have con­vened the spe­cial tri­bunal to hear what? It is dif­fi­cult for us to even as­cer­tain what is be­fore the court so we could even move fur­ther." In sum­ming up, Mar­tineau sug­gest­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion should "put its house in or­der" be­fore the mat­ter could pro­ceed. Thomas-Fe­lix al­so em­pha­sised that agree­ments re­lat­ing to the terms and con­di­tions of work of po­lice of­fi­cers must be filed at the In­dus­tri­al Court."So, first of all, you have no doc­u­ments which sug­gest that both par­ties agreed to this ini­tia­tive. We have noth­ing in our reg­istry," Thomas-Fe­lix added.

Re­spond­ing to the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions Jack Ewats­ki said he was pleased. Ewats­ki added: "We in­tend to con­tin­ue to work with the as­so­ci­a­tion to make the ser­vice more ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient." But de­spite be­ing faced with the re­jec­tion from the In­dus­tri­al Court to stop the project the as­so­ci­a­tion has brand­ed the mat­ter as a vic­to­ry. Rame­sar, who de­scribed the rul­ing as "very good" for the Po­lice Ser­vice, termed the project as il­le­gal. He added: "The as­so­ci­a­tion thinks, hav­ing re­gard to the pro­ceed­ings, it would have been a very good event for the Po­lice Ser­vice in so far as the as­so­caition was able to un­der­stand the court's per­spec­tive in a lot of in­stances. "The court hav­ing to out­line the role of the chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer in terms of con­di­tions, the as­so­ci­a­tion has now formed the opin­ion that every ac­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in re­la­tion to the 21st-cen­tur­ty polic­ing project is il­le­gal as it no longer in­volves the CPO," Rame­sar said.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion now took the stance to com­plete­ly dis­en­gage it­self re­gard­ing sup­port of that project. "It is af­fect­ing terms and con­di­tions. It ought not to move for­ward un­til it in­volves the CPO," Rame­sar added. He said the next move was to hold dis­cus­sions with the CPO and in­di­cate the "breach­es." "We have no doc­u­men­ta­tion that the CPO would have been in­volved in the project when it be­gan. The work­ing of po­lice of­fi­cers out­side the reg­u­la­tions and the stip­u­lat­ed terms and con­di­tions as it is now, in so far as it does not in­volve the CPO is il­le­gal," he said. Seales said he in­tend­ed to get the court tran­scripts as the mat­ter now fell in the relm of a labour dis­pute. He added: "This mat­ter now has to be re­ferred to the min­is­ter (Labour Min­is­ter) so that he could put a cap on what the com­mis­sion can do be­cause the court is on record as say­ing it is wrong be­cause there is no CPO in­volve­ment, be­cause the terms and con­di­tions would have been changed with­out the in­volve­ment of the CPO."