Halt to promotion

Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams has been restrained from proceeding with a promotion exercise for corporals to sergeants unless he supplies 11 officers with the scores of their colleagues who are on a Police Service (TTPS) merit list for April 2016.

In July, the 11 received an emergency injunction against the TTPS to stop a promotion exercise and the acting CoP consented to provide the scores of all officers who were promoted; the scores of 462 officers on the April 2016 merit list and details of scores of officers who were promoted on or before August 17, this year. The 11 who sought the injunction have been awaiting the Police Service’s promotion advisory board since 2016, for their ratings in qualifying examinations for the rank of sergeant. The judge’s order for the release of the information was disobeyed and the 11 again approached the High Court for another emergency injunction when they learned that the Commissioner was proceeding to promote corporals to sergeants, on a revised merit list dated August 14.

The injunction was granted by Justice Margaret Mohammed and again continued on Tuesday by Justice James Aboud. The affected officers are Audie Moona, Jerry London, Curt Douglas, Rene Katwaroo, Rameshwar Gopaul, Daryl Theophilus, Jimmy Marcano, Dirk John, Anslem Knott and Terrence Salandy.

In their lawsuit, they said that due to a shortage of sergeants in the service, a number of them were called upon to act. The 11 said that in 2015, they were informed they would be considered by the board for promotion and would be given an opportunity to engage in the process. In April 2016, a merit list was released, but 11 officers’ names were not on it. Attorneys Jagdeo Singh, Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh and Stefan Ramkissoon appeared for the 11.