In a landmark ruling that exposes significant administrative failures within Trinidad and Tobago’s defense establishment, High Court Justice Kevin Ramcharan has ordered the state to pay $175,000 in damages to Coast Guard Lieutenant (Naval) Chevon Diaz for unlawfully denying his promotion. The December 30 judgment revealed that flawed performance evaluations and unsubstantiated allegations regarding a missing weapon were improperly utilized to hinder Diaz’s career advancement.
The court determined that Diaz, an 18-year veteran of the TT Coast Guard (TTCG), was unjustly bypassed for promotion to acting lieutenant commander due to irrelevant and unsupported claims that contaminated decisions affecting his seniority, compensation, and professional trajectory. Justice Ramcharan delivered a sharply critical assessment of the evidence presented by the state, particularly questioning the affidavit testimony of then-Coast Guard commanding officer Captain Don Polo (now Chief of Defence Staff), which demonstrated repeated claims of ignorance regarding matters directly within his purview.
Central to the case was a 2018 incident involving a missing firearm. The court established that Diaz was not in command of the vessel when the weapon disappeared and that a rating outside his crew was responsible. Since no finding of guilt was ever made against Diaz, the judge ruled that his seniority could not legally be impacted and that negative appraisals connected to the incident should not have been used to penalize him.
Justice Ramcharan expressed particular concern about the quality of the defense’s evidence, noting: ‘On several occasions, Capt Polo averred that he could not admit or deny certain allegations because it was not within his knowledge. Clearly that cannot be true. He must know about matters concerning him. Therefore, the court views Capt Polo’s averments with respect to those issues very skeptically.’
The court established that Diaz should have been promoted to acting lieutenant commander on September 15, 2017—exactly six years after his appointment as lieutenant—and to the substantive rank on September 15, 2020, aligning with previous High Court precedent regarding promotion timelines.
Regarding Diaz’s claim for the Efficiency Medal, which requires 12 years of ‘irreproachable’ service, the court determined that while the standard exceeds mere absence of convictions, the weapons incident could not have tarnished Diaz’s reputation since he was not responsible. The judge ordered reconsideration of the medal decision based solely on relevant factors, though stopped short of directly awarding the medal.
The court awarded Diaz $100,000 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in vindicatory damages, plus 2.5% annual interest from the claim date until judgment, along with legal costs. Attorneys Arden Williams and Mariah Ramrattan successfully represented Diaz in both judicial review and constitutional proceedings against the Coast Guard commanding officer, the Defence Force Commissions Board, and the Attorney General.