ONE hundred and 15 police constables have received the green light to challenge a decision by the Police Commissioner to promote more than two dozen officers ahead of them.
On June 6, Justice Margaret Mohammed granted the 115 officers leave to pursue their judicial review claim against Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher.
They are contending the decision to promote 29 constables – all of whom were named –ahead of them is unlawful. They say they were ranked higher than the 29 on the comparative merit list, yet were not promoted to corporal.
They also contend the other 29 were treated differently and were only promoted because of “errors” in the promotion process.
The 115 are all seeking orders for retroactive promotion as of September 29, 2023.
The matter will come up for hearing again on November 4.
The 115 were part of a larger group of some 837 constables who were on an order-of-merit list after interviews were done in September 2023, but were not promoted with 896 who were, on September 28, 2023.
In pre-litigation correspondence, attorneys for the 115 had asked for the revocation of the promotion of the 29, after the police service admitted a computer glitch led to their erroneous promotion.
In February, Harewood-Christopher agreed to stop the promotions when faced with a barrage of lawsuits and legal threats.
There are 1,200 available spots for corporals.
After the September 2023 promotions, aggrieved officers raised their concerns and the "glitch" was disclosed. A new comparative merit list was then produced.
In November 2023, two months after the 896 constables were promoted, Harewood-Christopher wrote to DCP in charge of Administration Ramnarine Samaroo seeking further details on what became a fiasco in the police service, leaving hundreds of officers frustrated and aggrieved because they were bypassed for promotion after years of work.
In February, the Police Service Social and Welfare Association recommended the release of the affected officers’ scores, the revocation of the new rank of the 29 erroneously promoted officers, an independent investigation and the promotion of senior officers to create vacancies.
Also in February, the 115 also obtained the court’s permission to pursue a separate claims against the commissioner for not providing the individual scores of each officer on the 2023 merit list.
“The respondent upon realising that the initial order of merit list was littered with errors ought to have taken steps to rescind/revoke the erroneous appointments to the rank of corporal upon the publication of the comparative merit list,” the lawsuit contends.
The officers are represented by attorneys Kiel Taklalsingh, Keron Ramkhalwhan, Rhea Khan and Shalini Sankar.
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