The State has announced its intention to challenge the decision of the High Court that 32 police sergeants who claimed they were illegally bypassed must be promoted.
Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams, who was ordered to promote the officers to the rank of inspector, yesterday confirmed that the State had indicated its decision to challenge the ruling of Justice Margaret Mohammed, who ordered him to retroactively promote the officers as of December 19, 2012.
However, one of the attorneys who represented the officers in their petition, Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, said yesterday this pending appeal did not act as a stay.
He said the officers would have to be promoted and paid arrears, benefits and allowances due to them since that date as the court had ordered.
In an interview on i95.5FM yesterday, Williams said he was contacted by an attorney from the Deputy Solicitor General’s Office who indicated the state’s intention to appeal.
“The State has indicated they were not satisfied with the position taken by the judge and they would be appealing,” Williams said.
He said the case was one of a series of matters dating back to 2012 for which there were other court rulings in the opposite direction.
“So you have a series of issues and the officers have been taking matters before the court. You cannot stop a person from pursuing their rights and they have pursued their rights,” he said.
Williams said all he did was carry out the ruling of one of the substantiative decisions of the court to publish an order of merit list of promotion.
In light of that, he said, “these officers are saying I unfairly treated them. So it is really about a court decision I complied with and made promotions consistent with that ruling.”
He said it was now a matter of the State doing what was necessary by appealing the ruling and having the Court of Appeal make a determination. He said once this happened, whatever the determination, “then you seek to enforce it.”
Attorneys representing the officers, including Maharaj, Alvin Ramroop, Kinglsey Walesby and Ronnie Bissessar, claimed that the merit list system used to promote some of the officers’ colleagues over them was unfair, given that the same system previously had them higher on the merit list and in line for promotion. They also argued that some of the officers had been acting in the position of inspectors and failure to promote them led to financial stress.
Yesterday, Williams said everything which highlighted conflict would negatively impact on the police service’s image and this situation reflected conflict.
“It will have a negative impact on the police service and its image and it doesn’t give the public that positive image that everything is flowing smoothly in the police service,” he said.
State way too late—Ramesh
In an immediate response yesterday, one of the attorneys who represented the officers, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, said the State, like anybody else, had the right of appeal under the Constitution of T&T.
However, Maharaj said, while it had that right, the State had not put in any affidavit to contradict the evidence put forward by police officers, even though it was given the opportunity by the judge to do so.
Neither the State nor Williams filed any objection to the lawsuits.
Maharaj said it was therefore mindboggling that the State would now want to appeal, given that it might be very difficult for it to succeed because there was no answer to the officers’ claims that they were denied promotion.
He also said the pending appeal did not act as a stay and so the acting CoP would have to carry out the order of the judge to promote and pay them. He said if Williams wanted to suspend that order he would have to convince the judge as to his reasons for doing so.