DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Em­bat­tled Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher will have to wait un­til at least next month to learn the fate of her law­suit against the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) over its de­ci­sion to sus­pend her pend­ing the out­come of a crim­i­nal probe.

High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand re­served April 15 to ei­ther de­liv­er his judg­ment in her case or hear oral sub­mis­sions on its mer­its while pre­sid­ing over a vir­tu­al case man­age­ment con­fer­ence, yes­ter­day.

In set­ting dead­lines for the fil­ing of writ­ten sub­mis­sions, Jus­tice Sieuc­hand was ini­tial­ly mind­ed to ad­journ the case to a date in May, how­ev­er, he re­vised the time­lines af­ter Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s lawyer Pamela El­der, SC, point­ed out that her con­tract is due to come to an end that month.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, El­der sought to present ev­i­den­tial ob­jec­tions in re­la­tion to an af­fi­davit that was sub­mit­ted by Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion Corey Har­ri­son on the PolSC’s be­half.

El­der ques­tioned how Har­ri­son could give ev­i­dence over the com­mis­sion’s con­sid­er­a­tions when it de­cid­ed to sus­pend her when he was not a mem­ber.

She al­so al­leged that Har­ri­son’s claims that the de­ci­sion was to pre­serve the dig­ni­ty and au­thor­i­ty of the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, the in­tegri­ty of the probe and the rep­u­ta­tion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) were not in­clud­ed in the of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence ini­tial­ly sent to her client.

“We are ob­ject­ing be­cause the on­ly peo­ple who can speak to these fac­tors are the chair­man of the com­mis­sion and its mem­bers,” she said, as she not­ed that Har­ri­son did not dis­close the source of his claims.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Se­nior Coun­sel Deb­o­rah Peake not­ed that Har­ri­son was best placed to pro­vide the ev­i­dence as his de­part­ment pro­vides tech­ni­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive ad­vice and sup­port to the PolSC.

“He is per­fect­ly com­pe­tent to speak to it. It is rel­e­vant to this mat­ter,” Peake said.

She al­so re­ferred to a le­gal prece­dent which does not re­quire the head of an or­gan­i­sa­tion to tes­ti­fy on its be­half in lit­i­ga­tion.

Af­ter hear­ing the sub­mis­sions, Jus­tice Sieuc­hand ad­vised the par­ties to file writ­ten sub­mis­sions on the ob­jec­tions which he would con­sid­er when de­cid­ing the sub­stan­tive case.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that El­der con­sid­er pro­vid­ing sub­mis­sions on the com­mis­sion chang­ing its rea­sons in­stead of seek­ing to re­move the rea­sons pro­vid­ed by Har­ri­son.

In late Jan­u­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and de­tained by in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin.

Her ar­rest was in re­la­tion to a probe in­to the pro­cure­ment and im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

The com­mis­sion in­formed Hare­wood-Christo­pher of her sus­pen­sion hours af­ter she was re­leased from cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher filed the law­suit chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of her sus­pen­sion.

She sought an in­junc­tion over the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to ap­point DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin to tem­porar­i­ly re­place her while she is on sus­pen­sion.

The in­junc­tion was re­ject­ed by Jus­tice Sieuc­hand, who still grant­ed her leave to pur­sue her sub­stan­tive case.

“In my view, the bal­ance of con­ve­nience does not favour grant­i­ng this or­der, in fact, it mil­i­tates against it,” Jus­tice Sieuc­hand said.

He said that leav­ing the post open would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

“Al­low­ing such a void to per­sist can not in my view be jus­ti­fied when the present cir­cum­stances are such that our coun­try is plagued by high lev­els of re­port­ed se­ri­ous crime and we con­tin­ue un­der a State of Emer­gency,” he said.

“The pow­ers of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are there for a rea­son and some­one ought to be en­trust­ed to dis­charge them,” he added.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Rus­sell Warn­er, and Richard Thomas. Ravi Heffes-Doon ap­peared along­side Peake for the PolSC.