JENSEN LA VENDE
Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan is call­ing on mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to re­sign af­ter the Privy Coun­cil ruled that a re­tired fire of­fi­cer was by­passed for pro­mo­tion in breach of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing Wednes­day’s rul­ing, Ram­lo­gan said: “This judg­ment is an­oth­er sting­ing in­dict­ment against the com­mis­sion. In­stead of set­tling this mat­ter, the PSC and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour fought the case in the Privy Coun­cil and lost.

“I call up­on the com­mis­sion­ers to do the de­cent and ho­n­ourable thing and ten­der their res­ig­na­tion forth­with. They should hang their heads in shame as their ac­tion has once again cost tax­pay­ers mil­lions.”

Re­tired fire of­fi­cer Siew­nar­ine Ram­saran sued the Of­fice of the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, the PSC and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, claim­ing his rights un­der Sec­tions 4(b) and 4(d) of the Con­sti­tu­tion had been breached.

Law Lords Philip Sales, Nicholas Ham­blen, George Leg­gatt, An­drew Bur­rows and Ben Stephens found Ram­saran was de­nied a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to be con­sid­ered for ap­point­ment as act­ing Deputy Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, the sec­ond-high­est rank in the ser­vice. The Privy Coun­cil or­dered that dam­ages be as­sessed by a High Court judge, in­clud­ing le­gal costs.

Ram­lo­gan said the PSC failed in its con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date “to be an in­de­pen­dent check and bal­ance on the ar­bi­trary ex­er­cise of pow­er,” and called for a re­view of its pur­pose and sta­tus.

“It has presided over and fa­cil­i­tat­ed dis­crim­i­na­tion, vic­tim­i­sa­tion and un­fair treat­ment for far too long,” he said, de­scrib­ing the case as “a clear ex­am­ple of favouritism.”

In 2023 then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced plans to abol­ish all ser­vice com­mis­sions and re­place them with a sin­gle tri­bunal to han­dle pub­lic ser­vants’ com­plaints, say­ing poor man­age­ment was ham­string­ing the pub­lic ser­vice.

At the time, for­mer PSC chair­man Regi­nald Du­mas cau­tioned that re­form should be broad­er than sim­ply abol­ish­ing com­mis­sions.

“You say that we have to al­ter or abol­ish the ser­vice com­mis­sions. I think that is not good enough. We have to look at the whole pic­ture in a much broad­er way… and then make our rec­om­men­da­tions and take our de­ci­sion,” Du­mas said.

SER­VICE COM­MIS­SIONS

Ser­vice com­mis­sions ap­point, pro­mote, trans­fer and dis­ci­pline work­ers in the pub­lic ser­vice. There are four com­mis­sions un­der the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions De­part­ment:

– Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC): ap­points judges, mag­is­trates and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

– Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC): se­lects the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and three deputies.

– Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion: over­sees teach­ers in pub­lic and de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools.

– Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion: man­ages all oth­er pub­lic ser­vants.