For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith will have to wait un­til March next year to learn the fate of his law­suit over plans to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of an au­dit in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms Reg­istry in Par­lia­ment. 

High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad set a ten­ta­tive date of March 3 to de­liv­er his judge­ment in Grif­fith’s case, af­ter set­ting time­lines for the fil­ing of ev­i­dence and sub­mis­sions dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing Fri­day af­ter­noon. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Grif­fith’s lawyer Avory Sinanan, SC, in­formed Ram­per­sad that the par­ties were un­able to come to an agree­ment over the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil giv­ing a bind­ing un­der­tak­ing that it would not seek to lay the re­port in Par­lia­ment be­fore the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case. 

Sinanan claimed that al­though En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young gave an as­sur­ance that the coun­cil was seek­ing le­gal ad­vice over the pro­posed move and was in no rush to fol­low through, fel­low coun­cil mem­ber Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds ap­par­ent­ly re­neged. 

Sinanan re­ferred to a news­pa­per re­port over Hinds’ state­ments be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment (JSC) on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, as he claimed that Hinds re­vealed de­tails from the au­dit re­port and men­tioned his client. 

“It tells my client the bona fides of the as­sur­ance is un­der ques­tion...He is sup­posed to be an ex­em­plar and have re­spect for the court,” Sinanan said. 

He al­so sug­gest­ed that his client need­ed an in­ter­im or­der to pro­tect his rights. 

“We are be­ing rail-road­ed by the heavy hand of of­fi­cial­dom,” Sinanan said. 

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau stat­ed that an un­der­tak­ing or in­junc­tion was not nec­es­sary, as there was no breach by Hinds as al­leged. 

“I am not go­ing to de­val­ue the words of Cab­i­net min­is­ters...My clients would be re­spect­ful when they say some­thing,” Mar­tineau said. 

Ram­per­sad set dead­lines for the par­ties to file sub­mis­sions on the in­junc­tion and promised to rule on De­cem­ber 12. 

Grif­fith, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er be­tween 2018 and last year, de­tailed the rea­sons for the in­junc­tion in an af­fi­davit at­tached to his ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion.

Grif­fith not­ed that he first learned of the au­dit when it was an­nounced by Hinds in No­vem­ber last year. 

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 had 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. 

He 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 coun­cil in­clud­ing Dr Row­ley, Young, Hinds, Faris Al-Rawi, Colm Im­bert and Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

The au­dit com­mit­tee mem­bers re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers Welling­ton Vir­gil, Ray­mond Craig, Lennard Charles and Bri­an Pierre were al­so 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 Mar­tineau for the coun­cil. The mem­bers of the au­dit com­mit­tee were rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass and Brent James.

­—Derek Achong