Cop wins $500,000 from TTPS over transition delay

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The State has been or­dered to pay over $500,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a po­lice of­fi­cer, whose tran­si­tion from a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was se­vere­ly pro­longed.

High Court Judge Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Daawu­ud Mo­hammed, af­ter up­hold­ing a case over breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights late last month.

The court heard that Mo­hammed start­ed work­ing as a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Port Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion in April 2019.

In 2021, he was in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the TTPS’s re­cruit­ment process. Mo­hammed met the req­ui­site aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions and suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed all re­quired as­sess­ments, in­clud­ing poly­graph, med­ical, agili­ty and eye­sight tests.

He was sub­ject­ed to an ex­ten­sive back­ground and char­ac­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore be­ing told that he qual­i­fied to progress to the fi­nal in­ter­view stage.

Dur­ing his fi­nal in­ter­view, how­ev­er, Mo­hammed was told he could not progress, as the tat­toos on his right bi­ceps and left tri­ceps breached the TTPS’s then blan­ket pro­hi­bi­tion against body art.

Mo­hammed then com­menced the process of hav­ing the tat­toos, one of his daugh­ter’s name and the oth­er of a Quran­ic verse, re­moved.

Through his lawyers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, he filed a sep­a­rate law­suit over be­ing ex­clud­ed from the re­cruit­ment process based on the pol­i­cy.

While the case was still pend­ing in 2024, Mo­hammed was con­tact­ed and told he could com­plete the fi­nal in­ter­view. He was then al­lowed to com­plete the ori­en­ta­tion and train­ing process.

In No­vem­ber 2024, how­ev­er, Mo­hammed was told that he could not be sworn in with the oth­er re­cruits, as there were out­stand­ing is­sues with his back­ground checks and his pend­ing court mat­ter.

The case was even­tu­al­ly up­held last year, based on an­oth­er case from 2023 in which the pol­i­cy was deemed un­law­ful. Mo­hammed was award­ed over $300,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Mo­hammed then filed a sec­ond law­suit over the de­lay in con­firm­ing him as a TTPS of­fi­cer.

While the case was pend­ing be­fore Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar, Mo­hammed was per­mit­ted to com­plete the process.

In find­ing that Mo­hammed’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to equal­i­ty be­fore the law and pro­tec­tion of the law were breached, Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar found that the TTPS breached pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness when it did not per­mit him to re­spond to the is­sues that pur­port­ed­ly de­layed his swear­ing-in.

“Such be­hav­iour on the part of the State goes against the very grain of a fun­da­men­tal re­quire­ment of the rule of law, which is that ex­ec­u­tive pow­er which af­fects the le­gal sta­tus of a cit­i­zen must be ex­er­cised trans­par­ent­ly and in a man­ner that al­lows for ac­count­abil­i­ty,” Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

“The ac­tions of the de­fen­dants clear­ly showed a bla­tant dis­re­gard for pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness,” she added.

Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar al­so found that Mo­hammed’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty was al­so breached, as the TTPS could not ex­plain why he was treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly to his fel­low trainees.

“Equal­i­ty of treat­ment by pub­lic au­thor­i­ties would dic­tate that like cas­es be treat­ed in like man­ner and any de­par­ture from this must be ra­tio­nal­ly ex­plained and ca­pa­ble of with­stand­ing scruti­ny,” Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

“As a re­sult of the un­equal treat­ment met­ed out to him, the claimant was un­able to pro­fes­sion­al­ly ad­vance as his fel­low trainees did,” she added.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for Mo­hammed, Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar or­dered $135,000 for loss of chance and $145,000 for the dis­tress and in­con­ve­nience he en­dured.

“The claimant was left in pro­fes­sion­al lim­bo, un­able to as­sume the du­ties of of­fice, de­prived of the dig­ni­ty and se­cu­ri­ty that ac­com­pa­ny law­ful ap­point­ment, and he was forced to en­dure dif­fer­en­tial treat­ment while his peers pro­gressed in­to ac­tive ser­vice,” she said.

She al­so award­ed $200,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages to high­light the im­por­tance of the rights that were breached.

“An award of vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages is nec­es­sary not mere­ly to com­pen­sate the claimant, but to mark the grav­i­ty of the con­sti­tu­tion­al breach, to af­firm the nor­ma­tive force of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and to sig­nal that pub­lic au­thor­i­ties may not per­sist in un­law­ful prac­tices with im­puni­ty once their un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty has been chal­lenged by a lit­i­gant who re­mains sub­ject to their de­ci­sion-mak­ing and pow­er,” Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

The State was al­so or­dered to pay Mo­hammed’s le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the lit­i­ga­tion.

Mo­hammed was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Ganesh Sa­roop and Aasha Ram­lal.

The TTPS and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al were rep­re­sent­ed by Mary Davis, Nairob Smart and Si­mon Branel­lec.