— ex-police officer says after court overturned his dismissal
BY a unanimous decision, Guyana’s Court of Appeal on Friday ruled that the dismissal of former Superintendent of Police Simon Mc Bean in September 2009 was unlawful and remitted the case to the High Court for assessment of damages and superannuation benefits.
Mc Bean through his attorneys Patrice Henry and Roopnarine Satram, had argued that he was unlawfully dismissed by the Police Service Commission (PSC) in 2009.
“I feel vindicated,” said Mc Bean, as he reacted to the ruling of the Court of Appeal. He told the Guyana Chronicle that the way his career ended bothered him for years and he is thankful that the court has ruled in his favour.
The former superintendent of police was the beneficiary of a British Scholarship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Global Policing at the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom in 2007.
He had applied for study leave as well as no-pay leave, but received no response from the then Police Commissioner Henry Greene.
He subsequently applied for annual leave, amounting to 112 days; this was approved and granted by the then police commissioner. Mc Bean travelled to the United Kingdom to enrol for his Master’s programme while on annual leave.
While in the UK, he became ill and was unable to return to Guyana, but had complied with the procedure for submission of medical certificates through the Guyana High Commission in the UK. The former police superintendent’s annualised leave ended on December 24, 2007.
Mc Bean returned to Guyana in September 2008 and resumed duty. He worked for an entire year with pay before receiving a dismissal letter from the PSC. That dismissal letter was signed by the Secretary to the PSC and at the time was backdated to December 2007. Mc Bean, who was at the time serving as the second in command in ‘B’ Division, was never charged or heard by the said commission before he received his dismissal letter.
In September 2009, the former superintendent of police challenged his dismissal and had called several senior officers as witnesses to support his case in the High Court. The matter was heard before former Chief Justice (ag), Ian Chang, who had dismissed Mc Bean’s application.
The applicant had called for the decision of the PSC to be quashed, for him to be reinstated as well as superannuation benefits to be awarded and a declaration and/or order that the dismissal was a nullity, along with costs.
However, after the hearing in the High Court, Mc Bean and his team abandoned the relief of reinstatement as they felt too much time had passed and after having regard to all of the circumstances, it was felt it was not in his best interest to resume duty.
It was pursuant to the dismissal of his application, that his attorneys appealed the matter. Before Justices of Appeal, Rishi Persaud, Arif Bulkan and Rafiq Khan, SC., attorneys Henry and Satram argued that Mc Bean’s dismissal was unlawful on the grounds that the applicant’s dismissal was done in breach of the rule of natural justice; in that he was not given an opportunity to be heard. The lawyers also argued that, Mc Bean was on active duty when he received his retrospective dismissal letter.
“Rights that already accrued to a person cannot be taken away,” Henry told the Guyana
Chronicle, while noting that the Police Disciplinary Act provides a statutory procedure to discipline members of the force, including officers. That procedure was never involved or implied in Mc Bean’s case.
However, Judy Stuart-Adonis, attorney representing the PSC and the Attorney General’s Chambers, argued that Mc Bean terminated his own service by studying overseas.
In assessing the arguments before the court, the three judges said Mc Bean’s resumption of duty in 2008 negated the arguments advanced by Stuart-Adonis. Additionally, the court found that the former police superintendent’s resumption was inconsistent with an intention by him to terminate his service.
As such, Mc Bean’s appeal was allowed and the case remitted to the High Court for damages and superannuation benefits to be assessed on a date to be announced by the Registrar of the High Court.
