Gail Alexan­der and

Samp­son Nan­ton

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day unan­i­mous­ly con­firmed Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as the coun­try’s first-ever fe­male Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

All Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in the House vot­ed in favour of the mo­tion to ap­point her, end­ing in a vote of 36 for, ze­ro against and ze­ro ab­sten­tions.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who has been act­ing in the po­si­tion, was rec­om­mend­ed as the top choice by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) but it still need­ed to be rat­i­fied by Par­lia­ment.

Lead­ing the mo­tion for her ap­point­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­firmed the PSC nom­i­nat­ed her “as the high­est-grade can­di­date.”

Not­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher has a very long and var­ied ser­vice com­ing up the ranks from con­sta­ble, Row­ley added, “This of­fi­cer is high­ly qual­i­fied and very ex­pe­ri­enced and there­fore, we’re not en­tire­ly sur­prised she would have found favour with the ser­vice com­mis­sion, who would have list­ed her as the top ap­pli­cant at this time.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher is 59 years and by law must re­tire when she turns 60 on May 15, 2023.

How­ev­er, Row­ley not­ed the law al­lows for an ex­ten­sion of one year, and fol­low­ing a re­view, a max­i­mum fur­ther ex­ten­sion of two one-year terms. He told the House her im­mi­nent re­tire­ment did not dis­qual­i­fy her as a nom­i­nee.

But he de­tailed how the Gov­ern­ment saw it­self pro­ceed­ing.

On what hap­pens af­ter she reach­es re­tire­ment age of 60, he said she is a per­son with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 123 (1A) of the Con­sti­tu­tion whom the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has the pow­er to ap­point to be CoP. He said if her nom­i­na­tion was af­firmed yes­ter­day, the PolSC would be the con­sti­tu­tion­al body to ap­point her as CoP.

“It means the im­mi­nent fact of the re­tire­ment of Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher as a First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer by the op­er­a­tion of Sec­tion 74-2 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, nei­ther im­pacts nor dis­qual­i­fies her nom­i­na­tion or in­deed the House vot­ing to af­firm that nom­i­na­tion for her ap­point­ment, be­cause any fur­ther ap­point­ment can be done un­der Sec­tion 75 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act.”

He said the Pres­i­dent may, in re­la­tion to a po­lice of­fi­cer in the First Di­vi­sion, con­sid­er “in the na­tion­al in­ter­est to ex­tend the years of ser­vice of the of­fi­cer af­ter she has reached the pre­scribed age of re­tire­ment and to do so for one year in the first in­stance and there­after sub­ject to an an­nu­al re­view for a max­i­mum of two fur­ther pe­ri­ods of one year each.”

“That’s the law and those pro­vi­sions, one as­sumes, are well known to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, as they ad­vanced this of­fi­cer to us for ap­point­ment of CoP. We have to as­sume the Com­mis­sion is pre­sumed to know her age and be aware of the fact she’ll reach the manda­to­ry re­tire­ment age in May 2023 and equal­ly clear­ly has done so cog­nisant of the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tions 74 and 75 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act.”

He said at the ap­pro­pri­ate time in the con­text of her re­tire­ment, the PolSC may, on the Cab­i­net’s rec­om­men­da­tion, by con­joint op­er­a­tion of Sec­tion 80 of the Con­sti­tu­tion and Sec­tion 75 of Po­lice Ser­vice Act, make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Pres­i­dent at the ap­pro­pri­ate time for the Pres­i­dent to in­voke Sec­tion 75 in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

Op­po­si­tion Oropouche East Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal told the House he had no prob­lem with Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

He said, how­ev­er, that it was re­gret­table she did not have any his­to­ry of crime-fight­ing on the field.

“Whether that is an ad­van­tage or a dis­ad­van­tage one could nev­er tell,” he said, adding one would ex­pect that some­one com­ing in­to this po­si­tion would have some his­to­ry of crime-fight­ing to bring to bear.

He said it was un­for­tu­nate that the names of those who were list­ed by the PolSC as sec­ond and third, were not made pub­lic.

He wished Hare­wood-Christo­pher “all the best in her en­deav­our” and said he want­ed to in­di­cate to her that both the coun­try and Op­po­si­tion will be watch­ing her tenure. He al­so told her to be tough and strong.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s back­ground af­ter train­ing as a Con­sta­ble in Cen­tral Di­vi­sion and serv­ing from 1982-1991:

1991-98: Served in Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, pro­mot­ed to cor­po­ral

1998-2002: Sergeant in Court and Process and In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy de­part­ment

2003-06: Sergeant and In­spec­tor in Hu­man Re­source Branch.

2006-07: HR branch as Ad­ju­tant for Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice.

2008-09: As­sis­tant Supt in Ad­min­is­tra­tion HR.

2009-2010: Supt of Po­lice in Ad­min­is­tra­tion (HR branch).

2010-2012: Pro­mot­ed to Se­nior Supt (Ad­min­is­tra­tion).

2012-2013: As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er (Ad­min­is­tra­tion).

2013-2016: ACP in Spe­cial Branch

2016: ACP in South.

2017-2019: Deputy CoP (Ad­min­is­tra­tion).

2021-22: Deputy CoP act­ing in Op­er­a­tions

2022-to date: DCP and act­ing COP.

Spe­cialised Train­ing

2007: Train­ing at Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit.

2008: Ja­maica Con­stab­u­lary Staff Col­lege.

2008: Drug law en­force­ment pol­i­cy at Re­gion­al Drug Law En­force­ment Train­ing Cen­tre in Ja­maica.

2015: Train­ing at Wash­ing­ton DC Acad­e­my for De­fence In­tel­li­gence

2015: Ad­vanced Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing at In­corp In­ter, Wash­ing­ton.

2015: Se­nior man­age­ment train­ing at Ad­min­is­tra­tive Staff Col­lege, Eng­land.

2016: Ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship train­ing and oth­er cours­es, in­clud­ing hostage ne­go­ti­a­tions at FBI Quan­ti­co.

2017: US In­ter­na­tion­al Vis­i­tors Lead­ers Pro­gramme.

2018: In­ves­tiga­tive tac­tics, tech­niques, and crime pre­ven­tion train­ing at FBI, Pana­ma.

2019: Pro­gramme of In­ter­na­tion­al Law En­force­ment Acad­e­my on ex­ec­u­tive pol­i­cy and an­ti-cor­rup­tion, mod­el law.