JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

If hav­ing to shave your beard pre­vent­ed you from join­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), that hur­dle may soon be re­moved—pro­vid­ed the re­quest is based on re­li­gious grounds.

Ac­cord­ing to a draft pol­i­cy ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the TTPS hopes to im­ple­ment the mea­sure with­in the next month. The move fol­lows a Court of Ap­peal rul­ing over­turn­ing a High Court de­ci­sion and al­low­ing po­lice of­fi­cer Kris­t­ian Khan to wear a beard in keep­ing with his Is­lam­ic faith.

In Jan­u­ary, Court of Ap­peal judges Mark Mo­hammed, Maria Wil­son and James Aboud ruled there was no ba­sis for pro­hibit­ing beards in a mul­tira­cial and mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety.

“It is dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy any jus­ti­fi­able pub­lic in­ter­est in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety for pol­i­cy that im­pos­es a sub­stan­tial re­stric­tion on the re­li­gious prac­tices of in­di­vid­u­als, name­ly, de­vout Mus­lim po­lice of­fi­cers. There is no iden­ti­fi­able or rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able pub­lic in­ter­est ques­tion in­volved in whether a po­lice of­fi­cer with a ‘han­dle­bar mous­tache’ or side­burns (or ei­ther or both) is weak­ened when he per­forms his du­ties,” the judges stat­ed in their 40-page judg­ment.

Un­der the pro­posed pol­i­cy, of­fi­cers grant­ed per­mis­sion to wear a beard must en­sure it does not ex­tend more than two inch­es be­low the chin, must not dye it and must keep it well groomed at all times.

To qual­i­fy for the ex­emp­tion, which ap­plies on­ly on re­li­gious grounds, of­fi­cers must pro­vide de­tails of their place of wor­ship, ex­plain why wear­ing a beard forms part of their re­li­gious be­liefs and sub­mit a let­ter from their imam con­firm­ing how long they have been a prac­tis­ing Mus­lim and the re­li­gious ba­sis for grow­ing a beard.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin and TTPS So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent ASP Ish­mael Pitt both said the pol­i­cy rep­re­sents part of the ser­vice’s con­tin­ued evo­lu­tion.

Ben­jamin said the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive con­sult­ed the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) for guid­ance on best prac­tices, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“We are hop­ing that this pol­i­cy should be com­plet­ed in the next month or two be­cause I am work­ing re­al­ly hard on push­ing to get that pol­i­cy done. We want to make sure that we fol­low all the nec­es­sary pro­to­cols.”

Pitt said the pol­i­cy in­cludes checks and bal­ances to pre­vent of­fi­cers from ex­ploit­ing the ex­emp­tion by false­ly claim­ing to be prac­tis­ing Mus­lims.

He said the ob­jec­tive is twofold: to com­ply with the Court of Ap­peal’s rul­ing and to mod­ernise the im­age of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Both men, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edged that while ac­com­mo­da­tion is be­ing made for Mus­lim of­fi­cers, Rasta­far­i­an of­fi­cers may have to wait longer for sim­i­lar changes.

Pitt said: “His­tor­i­cal­ly, peo­ple view Ras­tas in a par­tic­u­lar way and that stig­ma in and of it­self is un­for­tu­nate, and we ex­pect that as a pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, once the frame­work is prop­er­ly or­gan­ised and po­si­tioned, we would have to ad­just to fa­cil­i­tate what­ev­er changes are deemed nec­es­sary, in the in­ter­est of an in­clu­sive so­ci­ety.”

Asked whether the pol­i­cy could even­tu­al­ly be ex­tend­ed to hair­styles com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with Rasta­far­i­ans, Ben­jamin said safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions would re­main para­mount.

“We have to look at what is very nec­es­sary be­cause the se­cu­ri­ty and the well-be­ing of our of­fi­cers are im­por­tant. If you have long hair and you have hair that is too long, it is al­so a safe­ty haz­ard. So, again, we are look­ing at all the dif­fer­ent things. There are some things that we are go­ing to be strong on and there are some things that we are go­ing to be le­nient on.”

Pitt said he ex­pects sim­i­lar pol­i­cy changes to be adopt­ed across oth­er branch­es of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

The draft pol­i­cy states: “For the avoid­ance of doubt, all male po­lice of­fi­cers are re­quired to main­tain the clean-shaven re­quire­ment as it per­tains to the un­der lip and throat.”

It fur­ther states that of­fi­cers seek­ing per­mis­sion to wear a beard must ap­ply to the of­fi­cer in charge of their di­vi­sion. With­in sev­en days, the di­vi­sion­al of­fi­cer is re­quired to re­view the ap­pli­ca­tion and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent in charge of the di­vi­sion.

If an ap­pli­ca­tion is de­nied, the of­fi­cer may ap­peal to an As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who has 21 days to re­view the ap­peal and is­sue a de­ci­sion.

Once ap­proval is grant­ed, of­fi­cers must reap­ply an­nu­al­ly and car­ry doc­u­men­ta­tion au­tho­ris­ing the ex­emp­tion when­ev­er they are on du­ty.

PRE­VI­OUS COURT RUL­INGS AF­FECT­ING THE TTPS

2018: Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed ruled that the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, 2007, were un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, in­valid, null and void to the ex­tent that they failed to pro­vide for the wear­ing of the hi­jab. The case was brought by po­lice con­sta­ble Sharon Roop.

2023: Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad ruled that the TTPS tat­too pol­i­cy was “dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and ill-ad­vised.” The court found in favour of re­cruit Dil­lon Ram­raj, who had been dis­qual­i­fied be­cause of a small green shuriken, or nin­ja star, tat­too lo­cat­ed be­tween his left thumb and in­dex fin­ger.

2024: Re­nal­do Mara­jh was award­ed $400,000 af­ter suc­cess­ful­ly su­ing the State for dis­qual­i­fy­ing him from join­ing the TTPS be­cause of his height. Mara­jh mea­sured 160 cen­time­tres (5 ft 3 in), while the min­i­mum height re­quire­ment for men was 167 cen­time­tres (5 ft 7 in). Women, how­ev­er, were el­i­gi­ble if they mea­sured at least 150 cen­time­tres (4 ft 11 in).