A former police superintendent found to be the victim of a discriminatory process that excluded him from being promoted to assistant commissioner has sued the state and the police chief for damages.

According to an ombudsman’s ruling, Raymond D’Anastas was discriminated against when he was not chosen for the role in 2016, despite decades of service and an impeccable track record.

D’Anastas has now stepped up legal action, filing an application before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction. He asked the court to declare he had suffered discrimination and a breach of his human rights, demanding compensation for the breaches.

Last year, Ombudsman Anthony Mifsud recommended that Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà issue a fresh call for the post and ordered him to compensate D’Anastas with €15,000 as moral damages in default.

He had ruled that the man behind the 2016 decision to favour certain individuals over others was former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar and that he had led “a parody of a selection process”, choosing people promoted to the new grade on the basis of personal trust rather than according to the manual on which such a process should be based.

In three separate rulings on cases filed by others who also felt discriminated, the ombudsman described the promotions exercise as “vitiated” and “defective”.

D'Anastas said that despite the fact that almost a year has passed since the Ombudsman's decision and recommendations, the Police Commissioner is resisting the implementation of the recommendations, opting instead to prolong the injustice in his regard.

Through his lawyer David Bonello, D’Anastas called on the court to declare a violation of his fundamental rights and award him compensation.

The ombudsman investigation revealed that the selection process had started well before it actually did, with Cutajar defending his decisions to promote some and not others “because I trust them”.

“Had the selection process been done properly, excluding certain people who were not the right ones for the job, maybe the complainant would have stood a chance of being chosen,” he said in his decision.

The selection board, chaired by Cutajar with former assistant commissioner Josie Brincat and Joseph Mangani as members, decided to pass 14 applicants and fail another seven, including D’Anastas. The Public Service Commission had investigated his appeal from the selection process but had voted to stick to the original decision.

In his considerations, the ombudsman said that, while D’Anastas did not have the automatic right to qualify for a promotion, the least he could have been given was a fair chance.

Gafà and the Home Affairs Ministry had rejected the conclusions of investigations by the ombudsman, which found that the process used to promote assistant commissioners in 2016 was “defective”. They insisted that the entire promotion process had adhered to the procedures established by the Public Service Commission.