Lawyers representing social activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj have claimed that the Police Service Commission knew that it had to seek Parliamentary approval when it granted an acting appointment to former Police Commissioner Gary Griffith in August.
They made the claim yesterday while presenting submissions before Justice Nadia Kangaloo in his interpretation lawsuit, which seeks to determine if Parliamentary approval is required for acting appointments issued by the Commission as with substantive appointments.
Presenting submissions on Maharaj’s behalf, Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan pointed to correspondence from the Commission to the Office of the President from mid-August, in which it submitted Griffith and a serving police officer’s names when recommending the acting appointment pending its completion of the substantive recruitment process.
“Why would it submit more than one name?” Ramlogan asked.
Ramlogan suggested that Parliamentary approval was vital for both substantive and acting appointments to the post because of the wide range of powers, which the officeholder wields.
“When you are acting you are vested with all the powers you hold with the substantive office. That is why it is important to get it right,” Ramlogan said.
He rejected claims that approval for short-acting appointments would cause a strain on Parliament.
“You cannot say it would be a waste of Parliament’s time...No one can say it is an impossibility, just that it is impractical,” Ramlogan said.
In his submissions, Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, who led the legal team for the Office of the Attorney General, supported Maharaj’s stance on the approval requirement.
Mendes suggested that the Commission could have left the post vacant while it was completing the process.
Responding to the submissions, the Commission and Griffith’s legal teams challenged the position.
Senior Counsel Russell Martineau, who leads the Commission’s legal team, submitted that while the Constitution prescribed the process of acting appointments for other officeholders, it was silent as to acting appointments by the Commission, who utilised power under a series of legal orders.
“Whenever it (the Constitution) tells you what the procedure is, it expressly says so,” Martineau said, as he described the suggested approval requirement as absurd.
Martineau rejected claims that the post could have been left vacant for a short period as he claimed that it always had to be filled due to the important powers of the office including transferring and disciplining police officers.
“Without the commissioner, you have a rudderless ship...There can be no hiatus otherwise you are undermining the Constitution,” Martineau said.
Martineau also denied Ramlogan’s claims that the Commission knew it needed approval, as he claimed that second name submitted was done because the Commission was being cautious.
Attorney Larry Lalla, who represented Griffith, questioned the timing of the lawsuit as he noted that former acting police commissioners James Philbert and Stephen Williams were given several acting appointments by the Commission over the past decade without any legal challenges to the Commission’s authority to do so.
“All of a sudden when Griffith is given an acting appointment something is wrong,” Lalla said.
Lalla called upon Justice Kangaloo to be cautious when deciding the case as he noted that it may have unforeseen effects including invalidating the work and decisions of other former acting office holders including Philbert and Williams.
Responding to the claim, Ramlogan said such decisions would be protected by the de facto officer doctrine, which insulates the decisions of an officeholder, whose appointment is subsequently invalidated, from challenge.
Justice Kangaloo is expected to take the next two days to consider the submissions before she delivers were ruling in the case at 1.30 pm on Thursday.
