Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West and Deputy Di­rec­tor Michelle Solomon-Baksh have been giv­en the green light to sue the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) over its rec­om­men­da­tion that their salaries be re­duced. 

At the end of this month, the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader, Chief Jus­tice, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary, Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, and Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and many oth­ers will be re­ceiv­ing their salary hikes.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day grant­ed the duo leave to pur­sue their ju­di­cial re­view case over the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tion in its 120th Re­port sub­mit­ted in Oc­to­ber, last year. 

Ac­cord­ing to their court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the duo’s cur­rent re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages are based on the SRC’s 98th Re­port dat­ed No­vem­ber 2013. 

Their lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, point­ed out that in its 113th Re­port in Oc­to­ber 2022, the SRC not­ed that it was await­ing a job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise and as­so­ci­at­ed com­pen­sa­tion sur­vey by the Per­son­nel De­part­ment in re­la­tion to sev­er­al pub­lic po­si­tions un­der its purview. 

In its 117th Re­port in May 2023, the SRC con­sid­ered the re­sults of the re­view process and rec­om­mend­ed that the salary of the Di­rec­tor be de­creased from $38,540 per month to $33,700 and from $33,570 to $29,100 for the Deputy Di­rec­tor. The de­crease was rec­om­mend­ed to take ef­fect from April 2020. 

Their lawyers not­ed that the re­port was re­ject­ed by Par­lia­ment due to anom­alies which led to a rec­om­mend­ed re­duc­tion in the salaries of sev­er­al pub­lic of­fice hold­ers. 

There were al­so re­ports of the Ju­di­cia­ry threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion over the 117th Re­port as salary in­creas­es were not rec­om­mend­ed for judges. 

Tak­ing aim at the SRC’s most re­cent re­port, their lawyers point­ed out that the SRC af­firmed the re­sults of the pre­vi­ous re­view and still rec­om­mend­ed an ef­fec­tive de­crease in their salaries. 

The SRC main­tained its rec­om­men­da­tion that their salaries be down­grad­ed from 2020 as sug­gest­ed in its 117th Re­port. 

How­ev­er, it rec­om­mend­ed that their down­grad­ed salaries be in­creased from $33,700 to $37,005 for the Di­rec­tor and from $29,100 to $31,954 for the Deputy Di­rec­tor, ef­fec­tive 2023. 

“The rec­om­men­da­tion still rep­re­sents a de­crease in the salaries of the two of­fice-hold­ers as the rec­om­men­da­tions are still low­er than the salaries cur­rent­ly en­joyed by the Di­rec­tor and Deputy Di­rec­tor,” their lawyer Im­ran Ali said. 

He point­ed out that the 120th Re­port, which rec­om­mend­ed salary in­creas­es for nu­mer­ous of­fice hold­ers in­clud­ing Cab­i­net mem­bers, oth­er Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, the Chief Jus­tice and Judges, and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, was laid in Par­lia­ment in No­vem­ber, last year. 

On Jan­u­ary 13, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert sub­mit­ted a mo­tion in Par­lia­ment propos­ing that the re­port be ap­proved and im­ple­ment­ed. 

Ali sug­gest­ed that the com­mis­sion failed to prop­er­ly con­sult with the duo be­fore mak­ing its ad­verse rec­om­men­da­tions. 

“It was there­fore in­cum­bent on the Com­mis­sion to give these of­fice hold­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ful­ly par­tic­i­pate in the job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise and to make sub­mis­sions on whether the rel­a­tive rank­ing of their po­si­tions and any equiv­a­lences which may have been drawn with their po­si­tions and oth­er po­si­tions (in the pub­lic or pri­vate sec­tor) were ap­pro­pri­ate,” Ali said. 

He stat­ed that the pro­ce­dure utilised by the SRC breached the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice and their le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that they be con­sult­ed. 

Through the law­suit, the duo is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions.

They are al­so seek­ing an or­der quash­ing the rec­om­men­da­tion and an­oth­er di­rect­ing the SRC to con­sult with them be­fore re­view­ing its de­ci­sion. 

West and Solomon-Baksh were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by An­tho­ny Bul­lock. 

The case is sched­uled for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad on April 7. 

The SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions in its 120th Re­port, which sees pay hikes for the Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader and Pres­i­dent, have been op­posed by sev­er­al econ­o­mists and trade unions. 

Last Thurs­day, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) de­scribed the pay rise as a wicked, dis­grace­ful and hyp­o­crit­i­cal move by the Gov­ern­ment. 

The Op­po­si­tion, whose mem­bers are al­so set to ben­e­fit from a pay rise and as­so­ci­at­ed back-pay, has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly stat­ed that it was not in sup­port of ac­cept­ing the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions. 

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dis­missed crit­i­cism over the rec­om­men­da­tions pre­vi­ous­ly ac­cept­ed by him and his Cab­i­net col­leagues, while ad­dress­ing a press con­fer­ence at White­hall, last week. 

“Lis­ten, I am not get­ting in­to that de­bate you know, all this does is tell you that we still have free­dom of ex­pres­sion in the coun­try. And I am not de­bat­ing the work. From this very podi­um, I told you be­fore, hav­ing tak­en the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion, the Par­lia­ment’s po­si­tion. I know there are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion on the mat­ter, so you are not telling me any­thing new there. There are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion,” Row­ley said.