Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) is now free to set a new date for its ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad re­solved a le­gal dis­pute raised by a group of mem­bers, who are con­test­ing the elec­tion un­der the ban­ner Voic­es in Blue. 

The poll, which was sched­uled for June 30, was de­railed af­ter the group ob­tained an in­junc­tion pend­ing the out­come of the case. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad was asked to de­cide whether As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Anand Rame­sar should be pre­clud­ed from con­test­ing the elec­tion, as he pre­vi­ous­ly served three terms on the ex­ec­u­tive-twice as pres­i­dent and once as sec­re­tary. 

He ruled that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s rules on­ly pre­vent­ed mem­bers from seek­ing re-elec­tion af­ter serv­ing three con­sec­u­tive terms. 

He found that as Rame­sar took a hia­tus from the or­gan­i­sa­tion af­ter com­plet­ing a term as sec­re­tary in 2019, he could now seek to be elect­ed once again as pres­i­dent. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “The Rule does not stim­u­late that one is per­ma­nent­ly pro­hib­it­ed from pur­su­ing elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive of­fice af­ter one has served three terms, but rather, it lim­its the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to serve for four con­sec­u­tive terms.” 

 The group had al­so ques­tioned whether Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs), Mu­nic­i­pal and Tran­sit po­lice of­fi­cers could be mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion and par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion. 

In its claim, the group con­tend­ed that non-tra­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers, who do not fall un­der the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), should not be al­lowed to join the rep­re­sen­ta­tive or­gan­i­sa­tion as a rule es­tab­lished in 2023 to per­mit their par­tic­i­pa­tion was not reg­is­tered with the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al as re­quired.

The as­pect of the case was re­solved as the as­so­ci­a­tion, through its lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, sub­se­quent­ly reg­is­tered the rule. 

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said it was re­gret­table that the par­ties could not re­solve the dis­pute with­out the need for lit­i­ga­tion. 

He said that the le­gal dis­pute did not as­sist in build­ing pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). 

“Weak in­ter­nal reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tems of­ten un­der­mine the ef­fi­ca­cy of an or­gan­i­sa­tion, and every arm and di­vi­sion of the TTPS should re-eval­u­ate, re­vise, and re­vamp its in­ter­nal process­es and modus operan­di since the or­gan­i­sa­tion faces a her­culean task of restor­ing pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in its ef­fi­ca­cy,” he said. 

“To make T&T safe again, a uni­fied and fo­cused ef­fort is re­quired, and a strong and rel­e­vant as­so­ci­a­tion can prop­er­ly ad­vance the many le­git­i­mate con­cerns of its mem­bers,” he added. 

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Rame­sar’s team, Qual­i­ty of Work Life, In­clu­sive­ness, Trans­paren­cy, Yield­ing Re­sults (EQ­UI­TY) praised the out­come. 

“Team EQ­UI­TY ex­tends our ap­pre­ci­ate and thanks to the Chair­man of the Elec­tion Com­mit­tee, for stand­ing firm and right­ful­ly so, which re­sult­ed in the mat­ter be­ing ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ven­ti­lat­ed be­fore the High Court where clar­i­ty was pro­vid­ed so as to re­move a dark cloud of spec­u­la­tion from hang­ing over Mr Rame­sar’s can­di­da­cy,” it said. 

It not­ed that it had sup­port­ed the in­clu­sion of non-tra­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers in the as­so­ci­a­tion. 

Rame­sar’s team al­so raised con­cern over sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial costs in­curred by the as­so­ci­a­tion in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the case. 

“We now await the com­ple­tion of the elec­tions process by virtue of the set­ting of the elec­tion date by the Elec­tions Com­mit­tee with­out de­lay,” it said.  

In a bul­letin to its mem­bers, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the as­so­ci­a­tion said that it would now work to set a new date for the elec­tion. 

“The TTPSS­WA will now move stead­fast with despatch to en­sure that ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions are held to pro­vide con­tin­u­ous lead­er­ship to serve the in­ter­ests of our mem­bers,” it said. 

In a press re­lease, it hailed the out­come of the case.

“We are pleased that of­fi­cers would now have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to elect their ex­ec­u­tive so that ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion can be made on their be­half for their bet­ter­ment and the over­all im­prove­ment of law en­force­ment in this crit­i­cal time in our coun­try’s his­to­ry,” it said.

“The TTPSS­WA com­mits to en­gag­ing in mean­ing­ful di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment with a view to se­cur­ing an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion in the pub­lic in­ter­est and looks for­ward to free and fair elec­tions in the near fu­ture,” it added.

The as­so­ci­a­tion was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Aasha Ram­lal. The group was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Aaron Patrick, and Petron­il­la Bas­deo. 

The T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Joseph Sookoo, and Abi­gail Roach.