JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith plans to ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil, fol­low­ing the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion al­low­ing a re­port on the is­su­ing of firearm users’ li­cences (FULs) dur­ing his tenure to be laid in Par­lia­ment.

On Tues­day, an ap­pel­late pan­el com­pris­ing Judges Prakash Moo­sai, Gillian Lucky, and James Aboud ruled that Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad erred in grant­i­ng a pro­hi­bi­tion in 2023, which had blocked the re­port’s pub­li­ca­tion. The rul­ing clears the way for the re­port to be tabled, pro­vid­ed Grif­fith and oth­ers named in it are con­sult­ed be­fore­hand.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath said the mat­ter had not yet been dis­cussed and may be con­sid­ered in Cab­i­net. He added that there was no ur­gency to lay the re­port at this time.

In a state­ment, how­ev­er, Grif­fith said re­quir­ing in­ter­views with him or oth­ers named in the re­port be­fore tabling it “makes no sense” be­cause the breach of nat­ur­al jus­tice has al­ready oc­curred.

“If a re­port con­tain­ing ad­verse find­ings about a pub­lic of­fice hold­er is pre­pared, sub­mit­ted, and pub­licly sig­nalled for tabling in Par­lia­ment—a place where you can hide like a cow­ard and de­fame oth­ers, sim­i­lar to E-Mail Gate, and not be sued—the con­se­quences are re­al and im­me­di­ate. Rep­u­ta­tion­al harm does not be­gin af­ter pub­li­ca­tion; it be­gins the mo­ment that ex­po­sure is made cred­i­ble.

“It is like say­ing some­one can point a gun at you and keep walk­ing to­ward you, but it is not a threat un­til the trig­ger is pressed. In this case, the dam­age had al­ready be­gun,” Grif­fith said.

He stressed that the ap­peal is not po­lit­i­cal, but about safe­guard­ing pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness for con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice hold­ers.

“Fair­ness is not a tech­ni­cal­i­ty. Nat­ur­al jus­tice is not op­tion­al. And con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice hold­ers—like all cit­i­zens—are en­ti­tled to pro­ce­dur­al pro­tec­tion be­fore ir­re­versible harm oc­curs. That is the prin­ci­ple at stake,” Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er from 2018 to 2021, said he first be­came aware of the au­dit in No­vem­ber 2021 when for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds pub­licly an­nounced it. The an­nounce­ment fol­lowed the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (PolSC) de­ci­sion, led by for­mer chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad, to with­draw his act­ing ap­point­ment amid con­cerns raised by Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley re­gard­ing FULs is­sued dur­ing Grif­fith’s tenure.

Grif­fith said Hinds in­di­cat­ed the au­dit was ini­ti­at­ed af­ter the NSC re­ceived a “fact-find­ing re­port” from re­tired ACP Arthur Bar­ring­ton and re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff Hay­den Pritchard, while the PolSC re­ceived an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port from re­tired Judge Stan­ley John. Grif­fith claimed the le­gal ba­sis for ap­point­ing the com­mit­tee, its terms of ref­er­ence, and its time­frame for com­ple­tion were nev­er dis­closed.

He added that al­though the com­mit­tee con­duct­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pro­duced the re­port be­tween No­vem­ber 2021 and Ju­ly 2022, he was nev­er con­tact­ed for an in­ter­view.