RHON­DOR DOWLAT

A High Court judge has grant­ed an in­junc­tion to for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, which pre­vents the Prime Min­is­ter from bring­ing the Firearm User's Li­cence (FUL) Au­dit Re­port be­fore the Par­lia­ment.

Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, in his rul­ing, said:

"No valid rea­son has been prof­fered to this court in the cir­cum­stances of the said let­ter and its no­ble in­ten­tion but its clear de­fi­cien­cies in law and the fact that there may be doubts as to its ef­fi­ca­cy and en­force­abil­i­ty. The sev­enth de­fen­dant’s po­si­tion was quite clear­ly an­nounced by him as the claimant be­ing one of his biggest mis­takes. The mat­ter is an ob­vi­ous­ly hot one for the po­lit­i­cal hus­tings should the need arise be­fore this Court rules on the va­lid­i­ty of the re­port. As has been stat­ed in the pub­lic do­main, ‘pol­i­tics has a moral­i­ty of its own’, and the Court ought not, re­spon­si­bly, to al­low any va­garies or doubts to pre­vail in a sen­si­tive mat­ter such as this. The Court can­not take the chance that po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy may con­flict with ju­di­cial cer­tain­ty. The Court can al­ready see po­ten­tial for con­flict if the un­der­tak­ing is not one that is giv­en to the Court in the course of its con­duct of the case but left, in­stead, to an un­sanc­tioned mis­sive from an un­known third par­ty."

“The force of the ve­he­mence born out of this re­port, and ex­pressed in pub­lic as al­leged by the claimant, sug­gests that its pre­ma­ture pre­sen­ta­tion or pro­duc­tion would have far-reach­ing ef­fects in the pub­lic do­main,” he added.

The rul­ing al­so not­ed:

"In the cir­cum­stances, the court grants an in­junc­tion re­strain­ing the sev­enth re­spon­dent from lay­ing an ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry or any part of the said au­dit re­port be­fore the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go or oth­er­wise pub­lish­ing any por­tion of the con­tents of same."

Dr Row­ley, as Prime Min­is­ter, is list­ed as the sev­enth re­spon­dent in Grif­fith’s law­suit, which al­so in­cludes the mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) and an au­dit com­mit­tee made up of re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers.

Grif­fith not­ed that he first learned of the au­dit when it was an­nounced by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds in No­vem­ber 2021.

Grif­fith said that Hinds claimed that the au­dit was or­dered af­ter the coun­cil re­ceived a "fact-find­ing re­port" from re­tired ACP Arthur Bar­ring­ton and re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff Hay­den Pritchard, and the PSC re­ceived an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port from re­tired Judge Stan­ley John.

Grif­fith claimed that when the an­nounce­ment was made Hinds did not re­veal the le­gal ba­sis for the ap­point­ment of the com­mit­tee, its terms of ref­er­ence, or a time frame for com­ple­tion.

He claimed that while the com­mit­tee con­duct­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pro­duced its re­port be­tween No­vem­ber last year, and Ju­ly this year, he was nev­er con­tact­ed for an in­ter­view.

Grif­fith claimed that af­ter he an­nounced that he formed a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), and reap­plied for the post of po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Dr Row­ley made com­ments over the fi­nal au­dit re­port and sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry in Par­lia­ment.

He al­so claimed that the re­port was leaked to a news­pa­per.

Grif­fith claimed that he is seek­ing the in­junc­tion to pre­vent fur­ther un­jus­ti­fied dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion.

"In the cir­cum­stances set out above I feared that un­less re­strained the Prime Min­is­ter was in­tent on lay­ing the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry or oth­er parts of the re­port in Par­lia­ment there­by caus­ing di­rect, un­jus­ti­fied, and un­quan­tifi­able dam­age to my rep­u­ta­tion and good name," he said.

In the doc­u­ment, Grif­fith claimed that the coun­cil had no pow­er to ap­point the com­mit­tee and de­scribed the process as ir­ra­tional.

"The en­tire au­dit process has now been ir­re­triev­ably taint­ed by bad faith and il­le­gal­i­ty and no sub­se­quent hear­ing by the au­dit com­mit­tee or any oth­er per­son or body can sani­tise the au­dit process," he said. 

Through the law­suit, Grif­fith is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over what tran­spired and an or­der quash­ing the en­tire re­port or as­pects of it which deal with his per­for­mance as po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

The law­suit was filed against mem­bers of the NSC, in­clud­ing PM Row­ley and Min­is­ters Young, Hinds, Al-Rawi, Im­bert, and Gon­za­les.

The Au­dit Com­mit­tee’s mem­bers—re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers Welling­ton Vir­gil, Ray­mond Craig, Lennard Charles, and Bri­an Pierre—al­so were list­ed as de­fen­dants.

Grif­fith is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Lal­la and Ajay Ba­ball, while Ker­wyn Gar­cia, Te­nille Ramkissoon, and Kendra Mark-Gor­don are ap­pear­ing along­side Rus­sell Mar­tineau for the Coun­cil. The mem­bers of the Au­dit Com­mit­tee were rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC, Rishi Dass, and Brent James.