Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in­clud­ing its chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley have agreed to hold dis­cus­sions on po­ten­tial­ly de­lay­ing plans to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of an au­dit in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms Reg­istry in Par­lia­ment. 

Late last month, Grif­fith filed a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the au­dit in­clud­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion for an in­junc­tion block­ing the move to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry in Par­lia­ment. 

When the case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad on Wednes­day morn­ing, Grif­fith’s lawyer Avory Sinanan, SC, re­ferred to an af­fi­davit from En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young. 

In the doc­u­ment, Young claimed that the Gov­ern­ment was in no rush to take the in­tend­ed ac­tion, as the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of such is be­ing con­sid­ered by a team of per­sons in­clud­ing a Se­nior Coun­sel. 

Sinanan al­so not­ed that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, gave a sim­i­lar as­sur­ance in his re­sponse to the case. 

How­ev­er, he claimed that his client was not sat­is­fied with the as­sur­ances which he claimed may be re­neged if cir­cum­stances change. 

“This re­port is in the po­lit­i­cal gayelle. It is not a firm as­sur­ance that we feel com­fort­able with,” Sinanan said, as he called for an of­fi­cial un­der­tak­ing that would have le­gal con­se­quences if bro­ken. 

Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau, who led the le­gal team for the mem­bers of the coun­cil, claimed that such an un­der­tak­ing was not nec­es­sary. 

“We have al­ready giv­en as­sur­ances that the re­port is not go­ing to be made pub­lic un­der Gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ty,” Mar­tineau said. 

Mar­tineau al­so sought to make brief pre­lim­i­nary sub­mis­sions over the na­ture of Grif­fith’s sub­stan­tive case over the coun­cil’s au­thor­i­ty to ap­point the au­dit com­mit­tee. 

“What au­thor­i­ty are you look­ing for?” Mar­tineau said. 

Sinanan firm­ly dis­agreed as he point­ed out that un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, ser­vice com­mis­sions such as the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) were es­tab­lished to help in­su­late in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence. 

“Un­less they have the au­thor­i­ty, they (the Coun­cil) can­not do so,” he said. 

Af­ter the ex­change, Sinanan and Mar­tineau agreed to hold talks over how the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion should be han­dled. 

In the event that they are un­able to come to a com­pro­mise, it would have to be con­sid­ered and de­cid­ed by Jus­tice Ram­per­sad. 

The par­ties are sched­uled to re­turn be­fore Jus­tice Ram­per­sad next Fri­day to re­port back on their po­si­tion. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Sinanan al­so re­quest­ed that the coun­cil dis­close the name of four serv­ing mem­bers of the TTPS that worked on the com­mit­tee along­side re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers Welling­ton Vir­gil, Ray­mond Craig, Lennard Charles, and Bri­an Pierre. 

Mar­tineau said that al­though Young claimed that the four of­fi­cers were to be ap­point­ed by act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to work with the re­tired of­fi­cers, he could not con­firm if this was done as on­ly the re­tired of­fi­cers signed the fi­nal au­dit re­port. 

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.

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, 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 formed a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), and reap­plied for the post of po­lice com­mis­sion­er, 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 the in­junc­tion, 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 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.