Imbert slams Police Service Commission

In fact, Imbert stated, Government was now being asked to pay the police constable salary in lieu of leave for the time that he "misbehaved" in the Police Service, and was on suspension.

Speaking on Government’s motion on crime in the House of Representatives, Imbert said this was one of the most graphic cases he had seen. "This is the same commission that plays Pontius Pilate when you ask them, ‘What are you doing?’ If you change them, if you got rid of them, if you move them, (they say) it would be a police state," he said, adding that the PSC was an anachronism.

Imbert stated that the "gentleman" to whom he referred as constable X, enlisted in the police service in 1971. From that time to 1975, he was found guilty under delegated authority by the Commissioner of Police and fined, on at least, ten occasions, for a number of allegations, including absence without leave, failing to comply with instructions, disobedience to orders, insubordinate conduct and falsehood, Imbert said. He said the constable was suspended from duty in 1990. Imbert stated that during the period November 1986 to 1997, constable X had been on the job for approximately 17 months, having been on suspended interdiction for the variety of court charges. These charges were larceny, obscene language, disorderly behaviour, assault and battery, traffic offences and others.

He said constable X failed to attend several appointments with the medical board between 1991 and 1994 to determine his suitability, or otherwise for employment in the Police Service.

Yet, despite this terrible record, Government was being asked to pay salary in lieu of accumulated vacation leave beyond the maximum eligibility of 662 consecutive and 172 working days earned by constable X prior to his retirement from the Police Service with effect from February 8, 2001.

"And the commission presided over this and said ‘No disciplinary action.’ The man guilty. The Police Commissioner finds him guilty of all kinds of things. No disciplinary action. (Instead the PSC says) Pay him his outstanding leave and some fantastic sum of money which he accumulated while on suspension and while before the court, and they paid him some $139,000. It is the same commission that screams political interference, police state and dictatorship," Imbert charged.

Imbert stated that nobody elected the members of the PSC. "They do not have any manifesto. They do not account to anybody. They have no mandate. They were just put there (by the President in accordance with the Constitution) and that is why they could insulate themselves from the rest of us, the 36 (elected) Members of Parliament, and say. —‘We do not have to worry with you, we are constitutionally protected. We do not even want to hear you.’ That is why, from time to time, various heads of the commission would come out and just lambaste whichever government was in power, whether it was NAR, UNC, PNM. They would just come out and open their mouth on whichever government was in power, or on whichever prime minister dared to criticise the institution."

Imbert, who spoke of the successes that the cities of Los Angeles and New York had in bringing down crime, stated that in those systems the elected politician could hire and fire the police chief, and had no police service commission to answer to. "The Prime Minister (of TT) cannot get up and say like Donald Trump on the Apprentice ‘you’re fired,’" the Works Minister said.

He added that in those systems the police commissioner, like a CEO of a corporation, could manage his men.