Po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in is chal­leng­ing the ex­ten­sion of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure.

A le­gal let­ter on the mat­ter was sent to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour through Free­dom Cham­bers, led by for­mer AG Anand Ram­lo­gan, yes­ter­day.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ap­point­ed as this coun­try’s first fe­male CoP on Feb­ru­ary 3, 2023.

In the let­ter, Bal­go­b­in’s lawyers said it was ob­vi­ous the nom­i­na­tion of Hare­wood-Christo­pher by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) could on­ly have been valid for her re­main­ing tenure as a mem­ber of the First Di­vi­sion of the TTPS, which is to say un­til she at­tained the manda­to­ry re­tire­ment age by the law of 60 years.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher turned 60 on May 15, 2023.

How­ev­er, on May 9, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty an­nounced that the Cab­i­net agreed and con­firmed a one-year ex­ten­sion of her con­tract

“Our client is con­cerned to en­sure that the cor­rect le­gal pro­ce­dure was fol­lowed in mak­ing this ex­ten­sion in favour of Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher. He in­tends to chal­lenge the le­gal­i­ty of the ex­ten­sion or­der giv­en the con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards in place for the ap­point­ment of a CoP. He is con­cerned that the ap­point­ment is in­valid and makes her “be­hold­en to the Gov­ern­ment” and this view has been shared by many oth­ers as re­port­ed in the tra­di­tion­al print me­dia,” the let­ter said.

Bal­go­b­in’s lawyers added, “We have ad­vised that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Ex­ten­sion of Ser­vice) Or­der, 2023 is il­le­gal, un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and in­valid be­cause Sec­tion 123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion vests the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) with sole and ex­clu­sive ju­ris­dic­tion to ap­point per­sons to hold or act in the of­fice of CoP. It fur­ther sets out the pro­ce­dure for ap­point­ment, which starts with the PolSC nom­i­nat­ing per­sons and ends with the ap­point­ment of the nom­i­nee by the PolSC con­se­quent up­on the af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“As­sum­ing but not ad­mit­ting sec­tion 75 is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly valid and prop­er, Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ap­point­ment be­yond the age of re­tire­ment is clear­ly not in the pub­lic in­ter­est and her stint as CoP has been an abysmal fail­ure. The mur­der rate has sky­rock­et­ed while in­no­cent cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to be robbed and mur­dered with im­puni­ty and the de­tec­tion rate re­mains crit­i­cal­ly low.”

The lawyers said if the ex­ten­sion is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and il­le­gal, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions are quite se­ri­ous and there would have been a most se­ri­ous breach of the Con­sti­tu­tion and rule of law.

They said it would there­fore be in both the state’s and pub­lic’s in­ter­est that the mat­ter be the sub­ject of ad­ju­di­ca­tion as soon as pos­si­ble.

“It is al­so, there­fore, un­fair to Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher, as she is not to blame for the il­le­gal­i­ty that vi­ti­ates the ex­ten­sion grant­ed to her. It is not right that her ser­vice should be shroud­ed with con­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal sus­pi­cion. Hence, this mat­ter re­quires im­me­di­ate res­o­lu­tion by the court.”

The at­tor­neys are seek­ing a prompt re­sponse on or be­fore 4 pm on May 31, “fail­ing which, we have been in­struct­ed to file, as a mat­ter fit for ur­gent hear­ing, our client’s claim in the High Court of Jus­tice.”

“We, there­fore, call up­on you to im­me­di­ate­ly ad­vise us of any change in your po­si­tion in this mat­ter,” the lawyers said.