Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Em­bat­tled Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­neys are set to com­mence le­gal pro­ceed­ings against the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) af­ter it failed to re­scind her sus­pen­sion from du­ty.

On Mon­day, the PolSC was sent a pre-ac­tion let­ter and giv­en un­til 2 pm yes­ter­day to re­verse the sus­pen­sion de­scribed by Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s lead at­tor­ney Pamela El­der, SC, as un­law­ful and be­yond its con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers.

How­ev­er, the on­ly cor­re­spon­dence El­der re­ceived from the PolSC was con­fir­ma­tion of re­ceipt. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the con­fir­ma­tion read, “Ref­er­ence is made to the pre-ac­tion let­ter dat­ed 3 Feb­ru­ary ad­dressed to Dr W Wal­lace, Chair­man, which was re­ceived via email on the same date. Please be in­formed the PolSC is in re­ceipt of your let­ter un­der ref­er­ence.”

When Guardian Me­dia asked El­der yes­ter­day what the next step would be, she in­di­cat­ed that they have to do what is nec­es­sary now. Asked to elu­ci­date, El­der said she al­ready in­di­cat­ed what her next step would be in her pre-ac­tion let­ter to the PolSC.

In the let­ter, El­der said fail­ure to re­verse the de­ci­sion to sus­pend Hare­wood-Christo­pher by 2 pm yes­ter­day would re­sult in her client be­ing ad­vised to im­me­di­ate­ly ini­ti­ate ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings.

Up to late yes­ter­day evening, no doc­u­ments were filed with the court. At the time, El­der con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that the process was on­go­ing.

In T&T, ju­di­cial re­view is the pro­ce­dure by which the High Court can re­view ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tion, omis­sion, or the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es of in­fe­ri­or courts, tri­bunals, pub­lic bod­ies, pub­lic au­thor­i­ties, or peo­ple who have been con­ferred with pow­ers by Par­lia­ment to ex­er­cise pub­lic du­ties or func­tions in ac­cor­dance with any law.

In ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings, the High Court ex­er­cis­es a su­per­vi­so­ry role that per­mits it to re­view the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process to as­cer­tain whether it was le­gal and fair and that the de­ci­sion-mak­er had the au­thor­i­ty to make the de­ci­sion in ques­tion.

In the pre-ac­tion let­ter sent on Mon­day, El­der crit­i­cised the PolSC for its lack of in­for­ma­tion in a pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence where the PolSC in­formed Hare­wood-Christo­pher of her sus­pen­sion while adding that the CoP had sev­en days to make any rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the com­mis­sion.

El­der wrote, “It is be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion, alarm­ing, and gross­ly un­fair that in the said let­ter you asked our client to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions in re­la­tion to an al­le­ga­tion de­void of par­tic­u­lars.”

El­der said the PolSC’s cor­re­spon­dence to her client did not state that it was in­formed of the name of the ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer and the rea­son­able grounds for sus­pi­cion that Hare­wood-Christo­pher was guilty of the mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice of­fence.

The pre-ac­tion let­ter stat­ed, “In the ab­sence of this crit­i­cal and nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion, it is alarm­ing that an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion ex­er­cised its con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers to sus­pend our client, the CoP.”

El­der said for Hare­wood-Christo­pher to have been “cau­tioned” by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, then that in­fers that there were rea­son­able grounds for sus­pect­ing that she com­mit­ted an of­fence.

There­fore, the CoP’s at­tor­ney con­tend­ed that “the PolSC was re­quired to re­quest, ob­tain and care­ful­ly as­sess the ma­te­r­i­al which af­ford­ed rea­son­able grounds for sus­pi­cion be­fore sus­pend­ing our client. With­out such ma­te­r­i­al, no im­par­tial, in­de­pen­dent, fair, just, and/or law­ful de­ci­sion to sus­pend could have been made. The ab­sence of such ma­te­r­i­al rais­es con­cerns as to whether the de­ci­sion to sus­pend was made on ex­tra­ne­ous fac­tors.”

El­der said the PolSC’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend Hare­wood-Christo­pher in the afore­said cir­cum­stances was, “shock­ing, un­law­ful and ul­tra-vires the con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers of the PolSC.”

The Se­nior Coun­sel added, “As an in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial body charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing the rights of our client, it was un­law­ful for the PolSC to sus­pend the CoP with­out hav­ing be­fore it any ma­te­r­i­al what­so­ev­er from which it could in­de­pen­dent­ly and im­par­tial­ly as­sess the ev­i­dence, if any, against our client.”

El­der fur­ther crit­i­cised the PolSC for the emo­tion­al dis­tress it has caused to Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and de­tained by po­lice of­fi­cers at her of­fice in con­nec­tion with the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles on Jan­u­ary 30. A day lat­er, she was ad­vised via a let­ter from the chair­man of the PolSC that she would have to cease du­ties as the CoP un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Guardian Me­dia spent over two hours out­side the Com­mis­sion­er’s res­i­dence in St James yes­ter­day as the 2 pm dead­line ap­proached.

Ar­riv­ing around mid­day, the sen­try on du­ty asked whether the com­mis­sion­er was ex­pect­ing us or if we had an ap­point­ment.

Af­ter be­ing in­formed that there was no ap­point­ment, the of­fi­cer stat­ed that he could not arrange a meet­ing with the com­mis­sion­er.

Guardian Me­dia then po­si­tioned it­self along West­ern Main Road, St James.

While there, re­porters ob­served a shift change among the sen­try guards around 1 pm. Short­ly af­ter, a heav­i­ly tint­ed Toy­ota Pra­do left the premis­es and re­turned min­utes lat­er.

At no point was Hare­wood-Christo­pher seen.

—Re­port­ing by Jensen La Vende