Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing 93 po­lice of­fi­cers have writ­ten to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to probe Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Chrsi­to­pher. The at­tor­neys want the PSC to act against Hare­wood-Christo­pher for her mis­han­dling of pro­mo­tions for over 2,000 con­sta­bles dat­ing back to 2009.

In their let­ter, at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh, Ka­ri­na Singh and Leon Kalicha­ran re­mind­ed the PSC of its pow­ers over the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, say­ing that dis­missal pro­ceed­ings can be con­sti­tut­ed for breach of con­tract or re­port­ed in­ef­fi­cien­cy based on per­for­mance ap­praisal.

The let­ter was dis­patched yes­ter­day.

“The PSC is al­so em­pow­ered to make ap­point­ments on pro­mo­tion and to con­firm ap­point­ments and al­so, ter­mi­nate the ser­vices of the Com­mis­sion­er or a Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice [af­ter giv­ing her an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard] on sev­er­al grounds,” the at­tor­neys stat­ed.

They con­tend­ed that the treat­ment of their clients in the pro­mo­tion is­sue con­sti­tut­ed both a breach of her con­tract for fail­ing to en­sure that “the hu­man, fi­nan­cial and ma­te­r­i­al re­sources avail­able to the ser­vice are used in an ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive man­ner” and her in­ef­fi­cient han­dling of the en­tire process.

The lawyers high­light­ed that part of the is­sue stemmed from the fact that the Pro­mo­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Board (PAB) had not prop­er­ly met since 2009, cre­at­ing a back­log of con­sta­bles to be pro­mot­ed to cor­po­ral.

This back­log saw over 2,000 of­fi­cers list­ed to be pro­mot­ed.

“Our clients are now frus­trat­ed hav­ing lost all con­fi­dence sub­ject­ing them­selves to what ought to have been a fair and trans­par­ent process hav­ing re­gard to the pre­vi­ous pre­vail­ing chal­lenges and fail­ures of the CoP and PAB. It is un­for­tu­nate as our clients are now cat­a­pult­ed fur­ther in­to the abyss of im­pro­pri­ety led by the ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS, chiefly the CoP and have now wan­dered in­to the un­law­ful.”

Since the PSC func­tions as the watch­dog of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) by hav­ing over­sight of the CoP, the at­tor­neys sub­mit­ted that the “un­bri­dled mis­use and mis­han­dling of pow­ers” by the ex­ec­u­tive of the TTPS, chiefly the com­mis­sion­er, should be sub­ject­ed to the PSC’s in­ter­ven­tion.

“We there­fore re­spect­ful­ly con­sid­er the su­per­vi­so­ry and reg­u­la­to­ry na­ture of the com­mis­sion is now trig­gered in the in­ter­est of restor­ing some mea­sure of in­tegri­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty of a con­sti­tu­tion­al func­tionary in the gen­er­al pub­lic in­ter­est and amongst the TTPS mem­ber­ship. Our clients re­main hope­ful in the com­mis­sion’s swift ac­tion in restor­ing trust and con­fi­dence in the man­age­ment and op­er­a­tions of the TTPS.”

The at­tor­neys, in bol­ster­ing their case, said one of the is­sues re­lat­ed to the er­ro­neous de­duc­tions of points in­clud­ed the im­prop­er place­ments of women of­fi­cers as be­ing “sick” while on ma­ter­ni­ty leave. The 16-page let­ter said un­der the head­ing “Gen­er­al Fit­ness” there was a wrong­ful clas­si­fi­ca­tion and com­pu­ta­tion of ‘ma­ter­ni­ty leave’ as ‘sick leave’.

“Whilst our clients hold the right to is­sue a chal­lenge to the re­cent pro­mo­tions on the ba­sis of their right to equal­i­ty be­fore the law, pro­tec­tion of the law, pro­tec­tion against ir­ra­tional­i­ty, fun­da­men­tal un­fair­ness and/or ar­bi­trary ex­er­cise of pow­er, we find it nec­es­sary to bring these im­por­tant mat­ters to the ur­gent at­ten­tion of the com­mis­sion for their ur­gent ac­tion and/or re­sponse and more specif­i­cal­ly, it calls for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the pro­por­tion­ate ac­tion on this long-stand­ing cur­rent fi­as­co in which res­o­lu­tion seems to be pro­tract­ed in­def­i­nite­ly.”

Po­lice of­fi­cers ag­griev­ed by the pro­mo­tion of some 800 of their col­leagues through an “anom­aly” in­struct­ed their at­tor­neys to write to the PSC.

The Sun­day Guardian was told that the of­fi­cers came to­geth­er to file the mat­ter af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­di­vid­ual scores, com­pared it to oth­ers and the mer­it list and re­alised that some­thing un­to­ward took place that saw of­fi­cers with low­er ranks be­ing pro­mot­ed over of­fi­cers with high­er ranks.

Of­fi­cers with high­er marks were al­so by­passed while their col­leagues with low­er marks were pro­mot­ed.

Af­ter a three-month wait, of­fi­cers were giv­en their scores which they com­pared with each oth­er last Wednes­day.

A mer­it list was com­piled af­ter a threat of lit­i­ga­tion and in Sep­tem­ber last year over 800 of­fi­cers rose to the rank of cor­po­ral. Some of the of­fi­cers were on the list as far back as 2009.

A re­view of the in­di­vid­ual scores showed an of­fi­cer at­tain­ing 89 points over­all and not be­ing pro­mot­ed and placed 900th on the mer­it list. An­oth­er of­fi­cer who scored 87.93, placed 211th and was pro­mot­ed.

While the 800-plus con­sta­bles are fight­ing to be pro­mot­ed, scores of peo­ple showed up at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my on Fri­day hop­ing to be­come one of the 1,000 of­fi­cers Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert promised in his Oc­to­ber bud­get.

The in­crease from rough­ly 350 of­fi­cers an­nu­al­ly to 1,000 is a dream come true for for­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith, who said to en­sure the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is at max­i­mum strength, the num­ber of re­tirees should not equal the year­ly in­take and pro­posed an in­take in­crease.

The in­crease will see an ex­pect­ed $80 mil­lion more spent on salaries to the po­lice ser­vice.

CoP sor­ry for the mix-up

In an in­ter­nal memo on De­cem­ber 6 last year, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er apol­o­gised to her of­fi­cers.

“I un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tion of the con­cerns raised, not just for the af­fect­ed ranks, but for all of­fi­cers of the TTPS and con­fi­dence in our pro­mo­tion process­es go­ing for­ward. In the cir­cum­stances, I wish to sin­cere­ly apol­o­gise for this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent, and for the ad­verse im­pacts it would have on the af­fect­ed of­fi­cers,” she said.

The apol­o­gy came a month af­ter she in­struct­ed act­ing DCP Ram­nar­ine Sama­roo to in­ves­ti­gate “anom­alies” in the mer­it list which saw an in­flux of le­gal bat­tles.

The No­vem­ber 20 memo to Ram­nar­ine was ti­tled “Re­vised Mer­it List for Pro­mo­tion in the Rank of Cor­po­ral” in which he was di­rect­ed to “iden­ti­fy the of­fi­cers who were er­ro­neous­ly pro­mot­ed; the an­tic­i­pat­ed chal­lenges that will arise when the re­vised mer­it list is pub­lished; the an­tic­i­pat­ed im­pact on the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion and the re­me­di­al plans to cush­ion the an­tic­i­pat­ed im­pact when the re­vised list is pub­lished.”

Sama­roo was giv­en two/ days to com­plete the re­port, which, in her De­cem­ber apol­o­gy, she said was done and the re­port was now be­ing re­viewed “with a view of de­ter­min­ing the na­ture, source, and ex­tent of any pos­si­ble anom­alies.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher added that she sought the ad­vice of a se­nior coun­sel to bring a res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter “in the best in­ter­est of all con­cerned.”

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Sama­roo said it was a “per­son­al mat­ter” and those with ques­tions should ad­dress them to the com­mis­sion­er and not through the me­dia.

“Pro­mo­tion with the Po­lice Ser­vice is a per­son­al is­sue in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers. If per­sons have ques­tions on the process, they must ad­dress their con­cerns to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and it will be dealt with. Us­ing the me­dia to achieve this is not the cor­rect means. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the can­di­dates’ scores af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the ad­vi­so­ry board were re­leased to each can­di­date via email on Wednes­day.”

At­tor­neys want in­fo on au­dit of mer­it list

In their let­ter, the at­tor­neys re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion in re­la­tion to the au­dit of the mer­it list that Sama­roo was sup­posed to con­duct.

This in­clud­ed:

* Any er­ror/s made in the re­cent pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise for con­sta­ble to cor­po­ral.

* The ba­sis of any de­ci­sion to con­duct an au­dit in­to the re­cent­ly com­plet­ed pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise for con­sta­ble to cor­po­ral.

* The na­ture, and scope of any au­dit that was con­duct­ed of the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise for con­sta­ble to cor­po­ral.

* The re­sults of that au­dit.

* The pur­port­ed ba­sis and/or ma­te­r­i­al mat­ters con­sid­ered pri­or to mak­ing the de­ci­sion to con­duct a re­vi­sion of the mer­it list.

* Who made the de­ci­sion and/or gave the in­struc­tion and/or di­rec­tion to con­duct a re­vi­sion ex­er­cise of the mer­it list?

* De­tails of any de­ci­sion to con­duct a re­vi­sion ex­er­cise of the Mer­it List by the PAB and/or COP.

* What method­ol­o­gy and/or con­sid­er­a­tions would be ap­plic­a­ble to the con­duct of the re­vi­sion ex­er­cise of the mer­it list?

* Any up­ward or down­ward move­ment re­sult­ing from the re­vi­sion ex­er­cise on the mer­it list and the pro­mo­tion list.

* The com­plet­ed re­vi­sion of the mer­it list.

Sun­day Guardian reached out to Hare­wood-Christo­pher about the in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the er­ro­neous pro­mo­tions and got no re­sponse. The list of ques­tions was copied to her com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie who said the com­mis­sion­er could not re­spond to the ques­tions as the mat­ter was now en­gag­ing the courts.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was al­so mes­saged about the chang­ing leg­is­la­tion to al­low for a bet­ter pro­mo­tion process, how­ev­er, Hinds, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, did not re­spond up to late yes­ter­day.