JSC lists police lawsuits

THE Joint Select Committee (JSC) of Parliament responsible for monitoring statutory authorities like the Police Service Commission (PSC) has vowed to compile a list of all lawsuits in the past ten years brought by police officers disgruntled with their applications for promotion. So pledged JSC chairman Prof Ramesh Deosaran at a public sitting of the watchdog body yesterday in the Red House chamber. The body was examining Police Service top brass including Commissioner of Police, Trevor Paul. Deosaran declared that the police examination system required a review. “There are obvious inordinate delays in getting a result — why?!”

He said the parliamentary clerks would compile a list of officers’ lawsuits and the JSC would examine them. At the sitting, Opposition Senator Robin Montano pressed Paul to provide him with some sort of benchmark in order for the JSC to assess the CoP’s performance from year to year. But Paul replied that he could not be drawn to state for example that next year would have only 28 murders. Paul said his objective was to reduce crime, and people would judge his efforts by how safe and secure they felt. Montano retorted: “That’s not good enough!” and warned Paul that his honeymoon period of settling into the job may be at an end. “By what measure do I judge you?,” he stormed.

Echoing a query made earlier by UNC MP for Naparima, Nizam Baksh Senator Montano asked Paul whether the Police Service reflected the ethnic composition of the society, and what was the ethnic balance between African and Indian officers? Paul promised to get those figures for the next sitting of the JSC.  Deosaran said any assessment of the ratio of African to Indian officers had to be linked to the number of each group actually applying to enter the service. Montano then called on the police to decipher certain coded telephone numbers which had been recorded on the telephone belonging to the late Ashmead Baksh, the murdered son of Nizam Baksh.