Mr. Ramnarine Somrah joined the Guyana Police Force as a constable in 1965 and was appointed Inspector of Police in 1986. The Police Service Commission dismissed him from the Force in 1989 for being absent from duty. He took the matter to court and the dismissal order was quashed by the court but no order was made for his reinstatement to the Police Force.
The Court ruled that the former Inspector should receive pension and other superannuation benefits calculated on the basis of 24 years of service. Costs of $200,000.00 were ordered to be paid by the Police Service Commission and the Attorney General.
Following this decision he brought another action that he be reinstated to the Force but this was dismissed. Not daunted by this decision he brought a third action for constitutional redress. In this action the court ruled that he was entitled to salary, pension and gratuity payments. The Police Service Commission appealed this decision to the Guyana Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal granted the Commission’s appeal and ordered that Mr. Somrah be paid pension benefits calculated on the basis of 14 years of service. It is this decision that sparked Mr. Somrah’s application for special leave to appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Mr. Somrah filed his application at the CCJ past the deadline for doing so. His lawyer therefore had to apply for an extension of time. Although his reasons for seeking an extension of time were rejected by the CCJ, the application did not fail because the case revealed that the Court of Appeal made a mathematical error in calculating his pensionable years. To guard against this miscarriage of justice the CCJ granted special leave.
Given that there was an error in the pension calculations the CCJ decided that in the circumstances it was just to grant the appeal because of the Court of Appeal’s error. However, the CCJ ruled that Mr. Somrah “did not have an arguable case” regarding his claim that he was wrongfully or unfairly dismissed by the Police Services Commission. The CCJ stated that Mr. Somrah should have raised all his constitutional challenges in his second lawsuit rather than seek to bring a third lawsuit raising constitutional issues concerning the same dismissal.
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