CoP ordered to promote policeman

COMMISSIONER of Police Gary Griffith has been ordered to retroactively promote a police corporal with 30 years’ service to sergeant after a High Court judge ruled that the policeman was unfairly treated.

Justice Kevin Ramcharan made the order late last month after he found there was unreasonable delay in awarding the correct assessment points to Deryck Chote, who had been acting in the post of sergeant at the Mayaro police station since July 1, 2011.

Ramcharan also held that Chote’s right to equality of treatment from a public authority was breached by the CoP's unreasonable delay and ordered the commissioner to promote him to the higher rank with effect from December 5, 2016.

The Attorney General was also ordered to pay Chote vindicatory damages of $50,000 and the policeman’s legal costs.

Chote, through his attorneys Anand Ramlogan,SC, Gerald Ramdeen and Alana Rambaran, received the court’s permission to challenge the commissioner’s failure to correctly assess him for promotion.

In his claim, he argued that he was not awarded the correct assessment points for his pass in the English Language component of the promotion exam.

According to the police’s departmental order No 211/07, officers in the second division who successfully pass the qualifying exam in English Language, or who were exempted from writing the exam, are to be awarded 35 points.

Chote did the exam in 2005 and passed the English Language, Law I and Law II modules. Although he failed the police duties exam in 2005, he rewrote it in 2009 and passed.

He was also successful at an interview in November 2015, but when the order of merit list was published for corporals to be promoted to sergeant, he was placed at 641 and missed being promoted. Corporals ranked first to 462 were promoted in April 2016, and a second promotion exercise was held for corporals ranked 463-488.

Chote said in August 2017, his supervisor told him the commissioner had published a new merit list and he saw he moved up to 486 when the corrected points were awarded to him, but he still was not promoted.

His application said promotions were again scheduled in August 2017, but Chote did not move up in rank.

He said if he had been awarded the correct points on the English Language component in the first place, he would have been promoted either in April or December 2016.

He also said because he was denied the promotion, he also lost out on the opportunity to act or take the exam for promotion to inspector.