Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Em­bat­tled Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher will learn the fate of her law­suit chal­leng­ing her sus­pen­sion by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) on May 12.

When High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand held a case man­age­ment con­fer­ence in ear­ly March, he re­served April 15 to de­liv­er his judg­ment but it was sub­se­quent­ly de­ferred.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that lawyers for Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the PolSC were in­formed by email yes­ter­day that the judg­ment would be de­liv­ered dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing on May 12.

The judg­ment is now ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered days be­fore Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ex­tend­ed term is due to ex­pire.

In late Jan­u­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and de­tained by in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin.

Her ar­rest was in re­la­tion to a probe in­to the pro­cure­ment and im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

The PolSC in­formed Hare­wood-Christo­pher of her sus­pen­sion hours af­ter she was re­leased from cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. She sub­se­quent­ly filed the law­suit chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of her sus­pen­sion and sought an in­junc­tion over the de­ci­sion to ap­point DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin to tem­porar­i­ly re­place her while she is on sus­pen­sion.

The in­junc­tion was re­ject­ed by Jus­tice Sieuc­hand who grant­ed her leave to pur­sue her sub­stan­tive case.

“In my view the bal­ance of con­ve­nience does not favour grant­i­ng this or­der, in fact, it mil­i­tates against it,” Jus­tice Sieuc­hand said.

He said that leav­ing the post open would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

“Al­low­ing such a void to per­sist can not in my view be jus­ti­fied when the present cir­cum­stances are such that our coun­try is plagued by high lev­els of re­port­ed se­ri­ous crime and we con­tin­ue un­der a State of Emer­gency,” he said.

“The pow­ers of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are there for a rea­son and some­one ought to be en­trust­ed to dis­charge them,” he added.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher at­tained re­tire­ment age months af­ter be­ing first ap­point­ed by the PolSC in Feb­ru­ary 2023.

The Cab­i­net led by the Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley moved to ex­tend her term by a year un­der Sec­tion 75 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act.

The leg­is­la­tion em­pow­ers the Pres­i­dent to ex­tend the term of a first di­vi­sion of­fi­cer who is due to re­tire if it is in the na­tion­al in­ter­est to do so.

Po­lice of­fi­cers can re­ceive two fur­ther one-year ex­ten­sions based on an­nu­al per­for­mance re­views.

So­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the move. The case was re­ject­ed by High Court Judge Ricky Rahim, the Court of Ap­peal and the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, Rus­sell Warn­er, and Richard Thomas. Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, and Ravi Heffes-Doon rep­re­sent­ed the PolSC.