The Supreme Court has reversed the 2005 dismissal of Aldo Ayuso, formerly a constable in the Crimes Investigation Branch (CIB), in a notable ruling that means that the Police Department has to take him back and pay him salary arrears estimated at $70,000.
The decision was made in March 2010, the order issued in June, but the Police Department has not acted and the attorney for Ayuso is saying now that he will go back to court for an enforcement of the order.
Minister of Police and Public Safety Doug Singh told us this week, in explaining why he thinks it is not easy to fire a police officer, that the court has recently ruled that a part of the process that the police had used to remove Ayuso from the department was flawed.
Former Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh declared that “…the correct procedure as required by law was not followed.”
Ayuso, enlisted on October 13, 2002, was blamed for the 2005 killing of a young Belize City student, Leslie Rogers, Jr., the grandson of former Deputy Prime Minister, C. L. B. Rogers (deceased); but the complainant cited in the court judgment was Maria Chang over an incident in January 2005, a month before the Rogers incident.
Speaking with Amandala Thursday, Police Commissioner Crispin Jeffries, Sr., declined to indicate when Ayuso’s reinstatement would be effected, but said it is a work in progress.
“The matter of Ayuso has been a vexing one: It has been going back and forth for years and we need to resolve it,” Jeffries told us, also noting that the firing happened before his time as Commissioner of Police.
“[Ayuso] can be retried,” said Jeffries. “…he can be reinstated and then retried.”
Dean Lindo, SC, who represented Ayuso in the Supreme Court when he sued the Police Department over his dismissal, said that he had asked the Minister of Police to reprimand Jeffries for his apparent refusal to take back Ayuso. Lindo points out that the court order was made months ago, but Jeffries has not yet acted.
Commissioner Jeffries concurred with an estimate provided to us by Lindo that Ayuso would be owed salary arrears of about $70,000 for the length of time he has been outside of the Police Department.
Lindo also told our newspaper that he is in the process of asking the court to issue a writ of mandamus – or an order to act – to the Commissioner of Police.
A Supreme Court order dated June 15, 2010, had directed that “…the dismissal of [Ayuso] be set aside and the matter be remitted back to the Commissioner to follow Section 24(6) of the Police Act.”
That part of the law requires the Commissioner of Police to seek the advice of the Solicitor General upon receiving the evidence against the accused, but before the final decision is made to dismiss or demote a police officer.
This applies where the Commissioner himself is conducting the proceedings and he can himself hand down a sentence to the officer.
Conteh had commented in his judgment that had the law been followed in dealing with Ayuso’s case “…much of the misery that attended this case would have been avoided.”
After working the appeals channels within the public service, Ayuso sued the Government of Belize and the Police Department, as well as the Security Services Commission and the Belize Advisory Council.
The court document notes that in 2005, Ayuso was involved in an altercation with members of the public at a bar on Princess Margaret Drive.
On January 17, 2005, a complaint was filed against Ayuso at the CIB by Maria Chang. The document does not detail the nature of the complaint. That complaint against Ayuso came before the Rogers killing.
We note that the CJ’s judgment, which we have read, does not specifically refer to the killing of Leslie Rogers, Jr., a later incident for which there was heavy public pressure on the police to take disciplinary action against Ayuso.
Following the complaint by Chang, Ayuso was subject to proceedings before a disciplinary tribunal within the Police Department, the Belize Advisory Council and the Security Services Commission.
On July 5, 2005, Ayuso was charged before a police disciplinary tribunal, and on that same day, the tribunal commenced proceedings against him.
On November 20, 2005, the disciplinary hearing concluded and the tribunal suggested that Ayuso be dismissed from the Police Department.
“From that point onwards, the history of [Ayuso’s] dismissal became bedeviled by procedural confusion of one kind after another,” said Conteh. “He appealed to the Security Services Commission on 5th January 2006 and on May 16th 2007, the Commission indicated its decision to uphold the findings of the tribunal.”
The Belize Advisory Council heard the appeal in 2008, and the council returned the matter to the Security Services Commission for rehearing.
However, on July 7, 2009, the Solicitor General advised that the Commission really had no jurisdiction to hear Ayuso’s case. On August 4, 2009, the matter was passed back to the Belize Advisory Council, which later dismissed Ayuso’s appeal.
Conteh noted that the appeal can go to the Council within 21 days of a decision by the Police Department.
Ayuso took his case to the Supreme Court for judicial review, and Conteh reviewed submissions from both sides on March 17 and 24, 2010 – five years after police disciplinary proceedings began against him.
In his decision, Conteh had also set aside the decision of the Security Services Commission of May 16, 2007, and the decisions of the Belize Advisory Council of December 17, 2008, and October 2, 2009, plus ordered the defendants to pay Ayuso’s costs of $7,000.
Amandala readers will recall that on February 16, 2005, four days after the shooting death of Leslie Rogers, Jr., the then Commissioner of Police, Jose Carmen Zetina, had ordered Ayuso’s interdiction, pending an investigation into allegations that Ayuso had wrongfully caused Rogers’ death.
Rogers, 22 at the time, was shot in his forehead at point blank range on Euphrates Avenue in Belize City.
Ayuso was criminally charged in March 2006. The charges were dropped after then Director of Public Prosecutions Kirk Anderson indicated that there was insufficient evidence against Ayuso.
A Coroner’s Inquest held prior to Ayuso’s arrest, which had heard from 18 witnesses, found Ayuso responsible for Rogers’ death.
For his part, Ayuso had contended that he merely acted in self defense. (Zetina said when first interviewed by 7 News over the Rogers incident that the Rogers killing was justified.)