For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has par­tial­ly suc­ceed­ed in his law­suit over plans to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of an au­dit in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms Reg­istry in Par­lia­ment.  

De­liv­er­ing a judge­ment, a short while ago, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was em­pow­ered to req­ui­si­tion the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that was done by a team of re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers.  

How­ev­er, he ruled that the re­port could not be made pub­lic by lay­ing it in Par­lia­ment. 

“I am of the re­spect­ful view that this re­port is for the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. It should not be in the pub­lic do­main un­til those au­thor­i­ties de­cide what to do with it,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.  

He al­so ruled that the re­port could be con­sid­ered by the Cab­i­net as it may as­sist in guid­ing pos­si­ble changes to firearm own­er­ship in T&T.  

“I think that the Cab­i­net ought to look at that in re­la­tion to its poli­cies,” he said, as he grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring the pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion of the re­port.  

Grif­fith, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er be­tween 2018 and 2021, de­tailed the rea­sons for pur­su­ing his ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion in his af­fi­davit at­tached to it. 

In the doc­u­ment, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Grif­fith not­ed that when his term was due to end he was ini­tial­ly se­lect­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to act in the po­si­tion un­til they com­plet­ed the re­cruit­ment process for the po­si­tion he reap­plied for.  

He not­ed that a high-lev­el gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial sub­se­quent­ly re­vealed to be Dr Row­ley based on his own ad­mis­sion, con­vinced for­mer PSC Chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad to with­draw the mer­it list for the act­ing ap­point­ment that was de­liv­ered to Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes.  

Grif­fith not­ed that he first learned of the au­dit when it was an­nounced by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter 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 to be in­ter­viewed.  

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 sig­naled his in­ten­tion to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry in Par­lia­ment. 

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

Through the law­suit, Grif­fith was 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.  

Grif­fith was rep­re­sent­ed by Avory Sinanan, SC, Lar­ry Lal­la, and Ajay Ba­ball, while Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, Te­nille Ramkissoon, and Kendra Mark-Gor­don rep­re­sent­ed the coun­cil. The mem­bers of the au­dit com­mit­tee were rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, and Brent James.