The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) must restart its entire promotion process for officers seeking to advance from the rank of Inspector to Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP).

On February 18, High Court judge Frank Seepersad delivered his decision in a lawsuit which challenged the promotion process for assistant superintendents of police. He also refused to grant a stay of his order because the breaches were “so fundamental and egregious.”

Insp Mark Hernandez filed a judicial review claim which questioned compliance and fairness of the performance appraisal and promotion process.

[caption id="attachment_1139688" align="alignnone" width="768"] Suspended Insp Mark Hernandez - Photo courtesy Mark Hernandez[/caption]

In a strongly-worded judgment, Seepersad laid bare the deep flaws of the process, calling it “deficient and defective.”

He ruled the breaches of statutory obligations were significant and undermined the integrity of the system designed to identify the most capable officers for leadership roles.

He also said the process revealed a cascade of errors and regulatory breaches which were “neither isolated nor de minimis” but rather “numerous, substantial, seemingly deliberate, pervasive, and profound.”

Seepersad found that the police service’s performance appraisal system (PMAS) was fundamentally compromised. Every candidate was automatically given an “outstanding” grade without an authentic evaluation of their performance.

This practice, he ruled, violated the merit-based system mandated by Section 16(3) of the Police Service Act and was fundamentally inconsistent with selecting the most qualified candidates.

He also held that the contracted third-party firm, Odyssey Consultinc Ltd, failed to enforce the mandatory 50 per cent pass mark for the qualifying examination.

Instead, Odyssey allowed all officers—regardless of their scores—to advance to the interview stage, on the advice of DCP Administration Natasha George, directly violating Regulation 19(5) of the Police Service Regulations,the judge found.

He deemed this action irrational and unlawful, stressing that it destroyed the credibility of the promotional assessment.

The judgment was particularly critical of the Commissioner of Police, holding that she bore ultimate responsibility for ensuring compliance with the regulatory framework.

Seepersad noted that every restrictive regulatory requirement of the promotion process had been disregarded, creating a “deficient and defective” system. He held that the promotion process, by law, was a merit-based system of stages intended to identify and promote the most capable officers, not one that operated as a mere formality.

“The breaches were neither isolated nor de minimis—they were numerous, substantial, seemingly deliberate, pervasive, and profound,” the judgment stated.

“Yet again, the commissioner was seemingly oblivious to her constitutionally imposed supervisory responsibilities as she failed to identify the circumvention of the regulatory requirement with regard