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Friday, May 9, 2025

High Court upholds Prisons Commissioner’s challenge of promotions

by

Derek Achong
366 days ago
20240508
Acting Prisons Commissioner Deopersad Ramoutar

Acting Prisons Commissioner Deopersad Ramoutar

Abraham-Diaz

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar has won an­oth­er round of lit­i­ga­tion against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) over the fill­ing of se­nior va­can­cies in the T&T Prison Ser­vice.

In a judg­ment on Mon­day, High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo up­held Ra­moutar’s law­suit, in which he chal­lenged a de­ci­sion by the PSC to “skip ranks” by seek­ing to fill the po­si­tion of deputy com­mis­sion­er with­out first ad­dress­ing va­can­cies at the low­er ranks of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent and as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er.

Ra­moutar, who has been act­ing in a po­si­tion four times high­er than his sub­stan­tive rank of su­per­in­ten­dent for more than two years, claimed the PSC breached an es­tab­lished prison ser­vice pro­mo­tion pol­i­cy and prac­tice and its reg­u­la­tions.

In 2021, Ra­moutar filed a law­suit against the PSC over its move to in­tro­duce a com­pe­ten­cy-based in­ter­view af­ter he topped the list of can­di­dates for pro­mo­tion to the rank of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent based on cri­te­ria set in 2014 and was await­ing retroac­tive pro­mo­tion.

When the case was first filed, Ra­moutar ob­tained an in­junc­tion block­ing the PSC from fill­ing per­ma­nent va­can­cies pend­ing the out­come. How­ev­er, the PSC was still per­mit­ted to make act­ing ap­point­ments and ap­point­ed Ra­moutar to act in the top post fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan in ear­ly 2022.

In Au­gust 2022, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran ruled that the PSC’s de­ci­sion to in­tro­duce a com­pe­ten­cy in­ter­view af­ter Ra­moutar placed first on the pre­vi­ous mer­it list was ir­ra­tional and un­rea­son­able.

Ra­moutar filed an­oth­er case and ob­tained an in­junc­tion from High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams af­ter the PSC sought to in­tro­duce a “suit­abil­i­ty” in­ter­view af­ter Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran’s de­ci­sion.

He filed a sep­a­rate case be­fore Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo af­ter he was in­vit­ed by the PSC to par­tic­i­pate in a pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise for the rank of deputy com­mis­sion­er in March last year.

In the case, Ra­moutar’s lawyers Mar­tin George and Sarah Lawrence claimed the PSC’s de­ci­sion to go ahead with fill­ing the se­nior po­si­tion while the pro­mo­tion process for the low­er rank of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent was on hold based on the pend­ing case be­fore Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams was il­log­i­cal.

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DPA) Corey Har­ri­son gave sworn ev­i­dence in the case and Deputy DPA He­len Warn­er was re­port­ed­ly present in court for the judg­ment.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo ruled that the PSC’s de­ci­sion to ig­nore and over­ride its pre­vi­ous pro­mo­tion as­sess­ment was ar­bi­trary, ir­ra­tional and un­rea­son­able.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ra­moutar said he was pleased with the out­come but de­clined to com­ment fur­ther as he not­ed that some of the pro­mo­tion is­sues raised by him were still be­fore the court.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that the out­come of his lit­i­ga­tion would ben­e­fit his col­leagues as he will reach re­tire­ment age in June.

The PSC was rep­re­sent­ed by a le­gal team led by Se­nior Coun­sel Ian Ben­jamin.


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