A pair of re­tired fire of­fi­cers lost their case against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) over its de­ci­sion not to pro­mote them af­ter their names were mis­tak­en­ly in­clud­ed in a mer­it list for pro­mo­tion, de­spite them not hav­ing the req­ui­site qual­i­fi­ca­tions. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed the ju­di­cial re­view case brought by Hay­den Hold­er and An­tho­ny Williams against the PSC and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the PSC could not be fault­ed for its de­ci­sion. 

“The com­mis­sion was du­ty bound to re­vis­it and cor­rect any ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sion which was tak­en in er­ror and it dis­charged its du­ty,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

He al­so ruled that the com­mis­sion’s ac­tions were not an abuse of pow­er and did not con­tra­vene the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

 “The claimants’ non-pro­mo­tion was pro­ce­du­ral­ly prop­er, pro­por­tion­ate and jus­ti­fied as it act­ed in ac­cor­dance with Reg­u­la­tion 9 of the Fire Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions,” he said. 

Hold­er en­list­ed in the T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) in 1992, while Williams joined in 1990. 

In 2021, they held the rank of Fire Sub Sta­tion Of­fi­cer (FS­SO) and were in­ter­viewed by the PSC for pro­mo­tion to As­sis­tant Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer (AD­FO). 

Their col­leagues suc­cess­ful­ly pur­sued a law­suit chal­leng­ing their place­ment on the mer­it list on the ba­sis that they nev­er held the rank of Fire Sta­tion Of­fi­cer (FSO)-the rank be­tween FS­SO and AD­FO. 

The reg­u­la­tions re­quired that of­fi­cers hold the rank of FSO for two years be­fore be­ing el­i­gi­ble to be pro­mot­ed to a high­er rank. 

Af­ter the case, the com­mis­sion re­moved them and oth­er sim­i­lar­ly cir­cum­stanced col­leagues from the list and on­ly pro­mot­ed FSOs to AD­FO. The duo even­tu­al­ly re­tired in late 2023. 

In their law­suit, the duo claimed that the com­mis­sion erred in tak­ing the ac­tion. Jus­tice Seep­er­sad dis­agreed. 

“The com­mis­sion adopt­ed a proac­tive ap­proach and cor­rect­ed a fun­da­men­tal er­ror of process,” he said. 

“This is the type of be­hav­iour and ap­proach that should be the norm as it is con­sis­tent with good ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he added. 

De­spite the out­come, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did not or­der the duo to pay the State’s le­gal costs for de­fend­ing the law­suit based on their cir­cum­stances and what tran­spired. 

The duo was rep­re­sent­ed by Ken­neth Thomp­son. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Che Richards.