Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness­man and ship cap­tain has been giv­en the green light to sue Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher over her de­lay in de­cid­ing whether to grant him a firearm user’s li­cence (FUL). 

A busi­ness­man and ship cap­tain has been giv­en the green light to sue Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher over her de­lay in de­cid­ing whether to grant him a firearm user’s li­cence (FUL). 

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day grant­ed the Diego Mar­tin man leave to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view case. His name was with­held due to per­son­al safe­ty con­cerns. 

The man, who op­er­ates a ves­sel main­te­nance busi­ness and cap­tains a ves­sel to per­form the ser­vice, said in Ju­ly 2021 he was grant­ed a pro­vi­sion­al FUL. 

“This (the job) of­ten re­quires him to sail the coun­try’s wa­ters and be sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­posed to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments,” his lawyers said.

The man com­plet­ed sev­er­al firearm train­ing cours­es be­fore he sub­mit­ted his ap­pli­ca­tion for an FUL in June 2022 dur­ing the tenure of Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s pre­de­ces­sor, act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob. He vis­it­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms Unit sev­er­al times seek­ing an up­date on his ap­pli­ca­tion but re­ceived none.

While his lawyers ad­mit­ted that there was no leg­isla­tive dead­line for de­cid­ing a FUL ap­pli­ca­tion, they sug­gest­ed that the process should be com­plet­ed with­in a rea­son­able time. 

“The re­spon­dent (Hare­wood-Christo­pher) has not pro­vid­ed an ap­prox­i­mate time frame as to when the ap­pli­cant can ex­pect a de­ci­sion on their ap­pli­ca­tion for a FUL,” they said. 

“The ab­sence of time­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion has cre­at­ed a chal­lenge in com­pre­hend­ing the cause of the de­lay in reach­ing a de­ci­sion on the ap­pli­ca­tion.”

The man is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the de­lay as well as an or­der com­pelling Hare­wood-Christo­pher to de­cide on his ap­pli­ca­tion. 

Last Ju­ly, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held a law­suit from a poul­try farmer over a two-and-a-half-year de­lay in de­cid­ing on his FUL ap­pli­ca­tion. 

In de­cid­ing that case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ac­cept­ed the lack of a time lim­it for de­cid­ing on FUL ap­pli­ca­tions but not­ed that the In­ter­pre­ta­tion Act re­quired that pub­lic au­thor­i­ties de­cide on ap­pli­ca­tions be­fore them in a rea­son­able time. 

He stat­ed that the TTPS failed to pro­vide ev­i­dence of what caused the de­lay in pro­cess­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion. 

“Con­sid­er­ing the au­thor­i­ties re­ferred to by the par­ties on the In­ter­pre­ta­tion Act and what is con­sid­ered a rea­son­able time, in the ab­sence of vi­tal de­tails of the process as to the dates of the move­ment of the ap­pli­ca­tion through the stages sup­port­ed by co­gent ev­i­dence, which was in the de­fen­dant’s purview, the un­ex­plained de­lay stands to be le­git­i­mate­ly viewed as de­cid­ed­ly un­rea­son­able,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said. 

The fol­low­ing month, High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo grant­ed a group of 28 FUL ap­pli­cants leave to pur­sue a sim­i­lar case over de­lays in de­cid­ing their ap­pli­ca­tions, which ranged from 22 to 25 months. That case is still pend­ing. 

Af­ter for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s three-year term end­ed in Au­gust 2021, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) re­tained re­tired Judge Stan­ley John to probe the is­su­ing of FULs be­tween 2016 and 2021.

The op­er­a­tions of the TTPS Firearm Unit were tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed due to a sep­a­rate probe and au­dit by a group of re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers com­mis­sioned by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. How­ev­er, a High Court Judge blocked the Gov­ern­ment from lay­ing the NSC re­port in Par­lia­ment as he ruled that it should on­ly be con­sid­ered by the TTPS and the PSC. 

The busi­ness­man is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, Jas­myn Sargeant and Ke­ston Lewis.