Gail Alexan­der

The Pres­i­dent’s no­ti­fi­ca­tion for nom­i­na­tion of act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to be ap­point­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice will be laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day.

This is stat­ed on the Or­der Pa­per for Fri­day’s HoR sit­ting un­der “Pa­pers” to be laid.

The Or­der Pa­per states, “The no­ti­fi­ca­tion of Her Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent, in re­spect of the nom­i­na­tion of Mrs Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for ap­point­ment to the Of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

The no­ti­fi­ca­tion is list­ed to be pre­sent­ed by the Speak­er of the House (Bridgid An­nisette-George). There are nine oth­er re­ports list­ed to be pre­sent­ed as well that day.

Ac­cord­ing to law, the nom­i­na­tion for a CoP has to be de­bat­ed and ap­proved (or not) by the Par­lia­ment.

The no­tice ap­peared on the or­der pa­per af­ter the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) yes­ter­day sent its mer­it list of names for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes’ of­fice, the Guardian Me­dia con­firmed.

Guardian Me­dia last week re­port­ed that the PolSC had been in the process of tal­ly­ing the scores of the 16 ap­pli­cants and was ex­pect­ed to send its mer­it list to the Pres­i­dent ear­ly this week.

The PolSC had tar­get­ed keep­ing its month-end dead­line to com­plete the se­lec­tion process. The PolSC’s mer­it list is said to be “less than a hand­ful,” sources in­di­cat­ed.

One name at a time is be­ing sent to the Par­lia­ment for de­lib­er­a­tion.

The PolSC, head­ed by re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ju­dith Jones, opened the process to ob­tain a CoP last year. In No­vem­ber, the PolSC an­nounced that the De­cem­ber 2022 dead­line had been ex­tend­ed to end of this month.

Apart from oth­er as­pects of the process, the last part of the ex­er­cise in­volv­ing in­ter­views were done in re­cent weeks. The PolSc had in­ter­viewed three can­di­dates dai­ly, con­clud­ing last week, fol­low­ing which scores were tal­lied.

The 16 ap­pli­cants in­clud­ed two fe­males— Hare­wood-Christo­pher among them, for­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith, for­mer act­ing CoP Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob (now re­tired), As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er An­dre Nor­ton, Lt Col Shel­don Ra­manan, a for­mer chief le­gal of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force; Ja­son Fran­cis (se­nior pol­i­cy ad­vis­er at the UN’s Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Peace, Dis­ar­ma­ment and De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) and Sr Supt Anand Rame­sar.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher is said to have ob­tained the high­est score in the se­lec­tion ex­er­cise.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, a 40-year TTPS vet­er­an up to the rank of DCP, be­gan act­ing while Ja­cob was on leave for 35 days since De­cem­ber. She was al­so due to go on va­ca­tion in Jan­u­ary.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials couldn’t say if her nom­i­na­tion will be de­bat­ed on Fri­day, the same day as it’s pre­sent­ed. But they added, “It will be as soon as pos­si­ble...”

They didn’t shed any light on whether Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will pi­lot Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s nom­i­na­tion when de­bate is done.

Weekes han­dles 2023 mer­it list

The last time a CoP was se­lect­ed - in 2018 - the process, apart from the as­sess­ment ex­er­cise, was that the name of the high­est grad­ed can­di­date was sub­mit­ted by the PolSC to the Pres­i­dent, who then for­ward­ed that name to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HoR) for ap­proval.

Where the House didn’t ap­prove of the high­est grad­ed can­di­date on the Or­der of Mer­it List, sub­se­quent nom­i­na­tions in or­der of mer­it may have been sub­mit­ted to the House from the Mer­it List. Where the Mer­it List was ex­haust­ed, the process would have recom­menced.

In the 2018 process to se­lect a CoP, the HoR re­ject­ed three can­di­dates for the post be­fore Grif­fith was cho­sen in Ju­ly 2018. The three were then act­ing CoP Stephen Williams, act­ing DCP Harold Phillip and act­ing DCP De­o­dat Du­lalchan. The 2018 mer­it list was ap­prox­i­mate­ly five, of­fi­cials said.

In the ill-fat­ed 2021 mer­it list which was with­drawn by for­mer PolSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad, there had been sev­en short-list­ed names. These were said to in­clude Grif­fith (first), Fran­cis, Nor­ton and Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

The cur­rent PolSC had re­ceived le­gal ad­vice to dis­re­gard the 2021 list and start the CoP se­lec­tion process afresh, af­ter the cur­rent PolSC was ap­point­ed in No­vem­ber 2021

The Jones-led PolSC was ap­point­ed af­ter the col­lapse of the Seep­er­sad PolSC be­tween Au­gust to Oc­to­ber 2021. The host of is­sues that oc­curred at that time cul­mi­nat­ed in an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt by the Op­po­si­tion to im­peach Pres­i­dent Weekes on the mer­it list is­sue.

The 2023 CoP mer­it list has, how­ev­er, again fall­en to Weekes to for­ward to Par­lia­ment.

Weekes’ term ends in March. Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who was elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 20, will take the oath of of­fice on March 21.

The 2022/23 se­lec­tion process in­clud­ed ex­am­in­ing can­di­dates’ health, fi­nan­cials, work his­to­ry, qual­i­fi­ca­tions and do­ing se­cu­ri­ty checks, poly­graph­ing and the PolSC’s fi­nal in­ter­view.

As­sess­ment al­so in­clud­ed the PolSC’s “In­creas­ing Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in Law En­force­ment” pol­i­cy. It was used to as­sess ap­pli­cants’ ex­pe­ri­ence and fo­cus on their abil­i­ty to per­form gen­er­al du­ties - man­ag­ing and su­per­vis­ing front­line staff, mid­dle man­age­ment, se­nior man­age­ment and ex­ec­u­tive.

Host of is­sues in last 2021 process

For­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith had topped the now de­funct 2021 list which was tak­en by pre­vi­ous PolSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes on Au­gust 11 , 2021.

It was, how­ev­er, im­me­di­ate­ly with­drawn af­ter Seep­er­sad was giv­en in­for­ma­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. This led to the then-PolSC ap­point­ing re­tired Jus­tice Stan­ley John to probe Firearms Users’ Li­cence is­sues with­in the TTPS. A re­port with al­le­ga­tions of great con­cern was done on this.

The mat­ter of the 2021 list and the Seep­er­sad PolSC trig­gered a host of is­sues be­tween Au­gust to Oc­to­ber 2021: Griffth’s ap­point­ment as act­ing CoP af­ter his con­tract end­ed Au­gust 17 be­ing sent on leave; Grif­fith’s law­suit, PolSC mem­bers re­sign­ing. with Seep­er­sad al­so do­ing so, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob be­ing ap­point­ed to act as CoP, a Court rul­ing find­ing both ap­point­ments un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and in­valid, and Ja­cob lat­er ap­proved as act­ing CoP.