Judge halts police association election, questions Ramesar’s eligibility

A High Court judge has blocked to­day’s sched­uled elec­tions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, cit­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns raised by a group of of­fi­cers about the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of can­di­dates and the col­lec­tion of dues from mem­bers not cov­ered by the Po­lice Ser­vice Act.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an emer­gency in­junc­tion on Mon­day morn­ing, bar­ring the As­so­ci­a­tion from pro­ceed­ing with its in­ter­nal elec­tions and tem­porar­i­ly dis­qual­i­fy­ing for­mer pres­i­dent Anand Rame­sar from con­test­ing, pend­ing a full hear­ing on whether he is law­ful­ly el­i­gi­ble to run.

The case was filed by sev­en of­fi­cers op­er­at­ing un­der the ban­ner “Voic­es in Blue,” in­clud­ing Wen­dell War­rick, Ron­ny Lee Gopaul, and Rox­anne Paul. They ar­gued that the As­so­ci­a­tion im­prop­er­ly col­lect­ed dues and ex­er­cised au­thor­i­ty over Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP), Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, and Tran­sit Po­lice of­fi­cers who fall out­side the le­gal scope of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, which gov­erns the As­so­ci­a­tion’s man­date.

They fur­ther claimed that Rame­sar, a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive, should not be al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion due to un­re­solved el­i­gi­bil­i­ty con­cerns.

In his rul­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad is­sued four key or­ders:

The As­so­ci­a­tion is barred from con­duct­ing or fa­cil­i­tat­ing its in­ter­nal elec­tions, which were sched­uled for Mon­day, 30 June 2025.

Anand Rame­sar is blocked from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any such elec­tions, pend­ing the court’s de­ter­mi­na­tion of whether he is legal­ly dis­qual­i­fied.

The As­so­ci­a­tion must, with­in five days, dis­close (i) the num­ber of SRP and Mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers cur­rent­ly list­ed as mem­bers, (ii) the to­tal dues col­lect­ed from those of­fi­cers since reg­is­tra­tion, and (iii) the le­gal ba­sis un­der which those dues were col­lect­ed.

The As­so­ci­a­tion is al­so pro­hib­it­ed from ac­cept­ing any new dues from SRPs, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, or Tran­sit Po­lice of­fi­cers un­til the court rules on the mat­ter.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled with­out a hear­ing, cit­ing ur­gency, and said the in­junc­tions would re­main in place un­til the next court date—an in­ter partes vir­tu­al hear­ing set for Tues­day 8 Ju­ly at 9:30 a.m.