“Halt all promotions” – cops with pending matters say to Police Service Commission

Seven senior police ranks have written to the Police Service Commission (PSC) through their attorney, C.V. Satram, demanding all promotions be halted until outstanding disciplinary matters they are involved in, are concluded.
The ranks all hold senior positions and have matters that go as far back at 2016.
That request was formed on the basis that the PSC is allegedly using the pending matters the ranks are involved in as a direct means to stifle their promotions.

“The Commission alone has the power to promote our client/s and has relied, as it routinely does, upon these pending investigations to deny the promotion that they would have otherwise secured,” the attorney outlined in the letter, dated Thursday, December 17, to the Chairman and Secretary of the PSC.
As is customary around the Christmas season, cops are identified for promotion and the complaining ranks were among those chosen. The PSC, upon the recommendation of the Police Commissioner, Nigel Hoppie, has responsibility to promote the ranks but at the same time, the Commission also handles disciplinary matters.

The ranks deemed it “fundamentally unfair” for the Commission, which has the ultimate responsibility for adjudicating disciplinary complaints, to delay the conclusion of that process and at the same time, rely upon those pending investigations to deny promotion “to those who are otherwise entitled for consideration for promotion.”

Further on, it was stated that “The Commission must not place weight on the allegations in considering whether to promote and in the circumstances, given the length of time that the investigations are ongoing, the complaint should be disregarded by the Commission in its deliberations.”
“The promotion of more junior or less qualified ranks will be the result of your conduct,” the letter noted too, adding that “such appointments would be in a clear violation of the Constitution by which you are bound and should the Commission proceed to make such appointments ahead of our clients, we will be forced to institute legal proceedings against the Commission to vacate all the appointments.”