Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 03/Aug 08:25

Cop on injury leave loses promotion lawsuit

A police officer who was on injury leave for almost ten years with full pay has lost his challenge over the Police Commissioner's alleged failure to promote him. Justice Ricky Rahim dismissed PC Ah-Keel Alexander's constitutional claim and ordered him to pay the commissioner’s legal costs and the Attorney General . Alexander joined the police service in July 2004. He sat the promotion exam for corporal and passed in 2009. He also successfully wrote the exam for sergeant in 2010. However, in August 2012, he was injured on the job. He went on injury leave until September 2021, receiving his full salary as a constable. During his leave, Alexander appeared before the promotion advisory board (PAB), was interviewed for the rank of corporal and placed 328 out of 258 on the order-of-merit list. Some 610 constables on that list were promoted, including those lower-ranked, but he was not. He was told he was not promoted because he was not on physical duty. Although he passed the sergeants' exam, he was not invited to interview with the PAB in 2022. On the alleged failure to promote him to sergeant, Rahim said neither the Police Service Act nor the regulations provided for withholding promotion because of sick or injury leave. But he said being deemed suitable for promotion did not equate to a rule that one must be promoted. In Alexander’s case, he said there was no benefit to the police service to promoting him while he was on leave because he would not be able to do the job, although it was not his fault he was injured. “The court is therefore attracted to the position that the powers of promotion vested in the CoP should not be limited in circumstances where the act does not seek to limit the exercise of such power by removing the discretion to await the resumption of duty of the officer in keeping with good and efficient management of the TTPS.” In this case, he said it was not unreasonable for the commissioner to promote officers on active duty for the benefit of the service. Alexander, he added, will be retroactively promoted when he resumes work. “It is a reasonable and sensible one. It is not arbitrary or irrational.” He also said he found no basis for finding the process unfair. However, he admitted he was concerned by the evidence of acting Senior Supt Sherma Maynard-Wilson, head of the human resource branch, on the classification of Alexander’s leave, and that his absence for 2021 was not accounted for. Rahim also said the service’s position that Alexander did not resume work although he was deemed fit to return by the police’s medical board was “untenable.” “It appeared not to have confidence that its board was sufficiently experienced to make a true assessment…Hence it referred him to the Ministry of Health.” Rahim also addressed Alexander’s contention that he was invited for re-assessment for corporals, saying it would be wrong to do so. “The claimant has already been assessed for the rank of corporal and has been interviewed and placed on the merit list for promotion. This error (if it is an error) is made even worse by the fact that he has also passed the examination for promotion to sergeant and will be entitled to an interview for same, provided that he is recommended by the officer in charge of his division or branch even though he may be on injury leave.” Alexander was represented by Kristy Mohan. Coreen Findley, Nisa Simmons and Lianne Thomas. The post Cop on injury leave loses promotion lawsuit appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.