PCA challenges pay cuts suggested by Salaries Review Commission

The High Court has granted the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) and its top officials permission to challenge the Salaries Review Commission’s (SRC) recommendations on their salaries.

The PCA’s director, David West, and deputy director, Michelle Solomon-Baksh, argue the process was flawed and lacked proper consultation.

Justice Frank Seepersad granted the two leave on February 17 and has fixed April 7 for hearing their claim.

In their application, the PCA’s directors contend the SRC’s 120th report did not fairly evaluate their offices and breached principles of natural justice. They’re now seeking court declarations that the report was made without proper consultation, violating their legitimate expectation to be heard before any recommendation on their salaries and terms and conditions.

Their application calls for the SRC’s decision to be quashed and for the court to order consultation before any further salary recommendations are made.

In their application, they said when their salaries were reviewed in 2013 for the SRC’s 98th report, the commission held eight comprehensive reviews, inviting written submissions and oral presentations from officeholders, including the PCA leadership. Though their proposals were not fully approved, the Cabinet accepted the salaries the SRC recommended and they remain in effect.

However, the PCA officials' application said the RC’s 113th report in 2022 and its 117th report in 2023 involved consultations on job evaluations, but not on a compensation survey.

When the 117th report was laid in the House of Representatives in February 2024, it recommended a salary reduction for both the director and deputy director, retroactive to April 1, 2020 – a 12.5 per cent and 13.3 per cent decrease, respectively.

The director’s salary was to drop from $38,540 to $33,700 and the deputy director’s from $33,570 to $29,100.

The Cabinet did not accept the recommendations of the 117th report.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert explained the 117 SRC report was the result of a job-evaluation exercise that took over a decade to complete, and was not a general or ordinary review of terms and conditions of employment in offices under the purview of the SRC.

Imbert said there were several serious anomalies in the report.

Chief Justice Ivor Archie, in a letter to the Prime Minister, also viewed the report as flawed.

Imbert said the 117th report would be returned to the SRC for review.

In their lawsuit, the PCA directors said the SRC never told them a salary downgrade was even under consideration.

The application said the 120th report, while suggesting a slight salary increase from the 117th report’s figures – raising the director’s pay to $37,005 and the deputy director’s to $31,954 – still represented a reduction from their current earnings.

Describing the report’s recommendations as “adverse,” the application said, “The applicants were not informed before the commission made its recommendations that it intended to make the specific adverse recommendations concerning the authority’s director and deputy director.”

It also noted that in January 2025, West twice wrote to Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, expressing objections to the SRC’s recommendations and asking whether the Cabinet intended to accept them.

Receiving no response, the two filed their judicial review application on January 23.

The SRC’s 120th report was laid in Parliament in November 2024, and the Prime Minister confirmed at a media briefing that the Cabinet had accepted it.

Contacted for comment, West said he had none. Solomon-Baksh also declined to speak on the lawsuit.

”I do not think it’s appropriate to comment on matters that are sub judice.”

They are represented by Douglas Mendes, SC, Anthony Bullock and Imran Ali.