Derek Achong

Even with a set­tle­ment in place be­tween act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Grif­fith has not yet de­cid­ed to dis­con­tin­ue his law­suit against the com­mis­sion over its de­ci­sion to sus­pend him pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the is­su­ing of firearm user’s li­cences (FULs).

This was re­vealed as the law­suit came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Grif­fith’s lawyer Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, in­di­cat­ed that while a set­tle­ment was agreed, his client would not be will­ing to with­draw his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit un­til the com­mis­sion com­piled with an es­sen­tial term of the set­tle­ment.

Al­though Ma­haraj did not re­veal de­tails of the out­stand­ing term of the set­tle­ment, he did in­di­cate that Grif­fith would no longer be pur­su­ing an in­junc­tion seek­ing his re­in­state­ment as he (Grif­fith) agreed to not re­turn to ac­tive du­ty un­til Oc­to­ber 31 or when for­mer Ap­pel­late judge Stan­ley John com­plet­ed his FUL in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“We feel rea­son­ably con­fi­dent that this mat­ter could be re­solved,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj and Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau agreed that they were will­ing to dis­close the terms of the set­tle­ment to Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo but de­clined to ex­tend the op­tion to the le­gal team rep­re­sent­ing so­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj in a sep­a­rate but re­lat­ed law­suit, over whether the cor­rect process un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion was used by the com­mis­sion to give Grif­fith his act­ing ap­point­ment af­ter his three-year term end­ed in mid-Au­gust.

Ma­haraj’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, chal­lenged the po­si­tion as he stat­ed that the set­tle­ment should not be kept se­cret based on the pub­lic in­ter­est in the is­sue.

“You can­not have a se­cret set­tle­ment in a pub­lic law case. That is fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong,” Ram­lo­gan said, as he re­it­er­at­ed that Grif­fith’s law­suit over his sus­pen­sion would be­come su­per­flu­ous if his client is suc­cess­ful in in­val­i­dat­ing his (Grif­fith) act­ing ap­point­ment.

“This is an at­tempt to save face and do dam­age con­trol,” Ram­lo­gan added.

At­tor­ney Ma­haraj and Mar­tineau dis­agreed as they claimed that the mat­ter was closed as Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo had not grant­ed leave to pur­sue the law­suit.

Ram­lo­gan made an­oth­er re­quest to be served with Grif­fith’s court fil­ings, so that his client could de­ter­mine whether to ap­ply to be an in­ter­est­ed par­ty in the case. Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo agreed and made the or­der.

Kan­ga­loo then ad­journed Grif­fith’s case to No­vem­ber 10, for the par­ties to re­port back to her on the sta­tus of the law­suit and as­so­ci­at­ed set­tle­ment.

Deal­ing next with Ma­haraj’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion case, Ram­lo­gan ques­tioned a re­cent move by the Com­mis­sion to put for­ward ev­i­dence to be con­sid­ered by the court.

Ram­lo­gan ques­tioned who the com­mis­sion’s le­gal team was tak­ing their in­struc­tions from as he point­ed out that it (the com­mis­sion) is cur­rent­ly in­quo­rate based on the con­firmed re­cent res­ig­na­tions of mem­bers Court­ney Mc­Nish and Dr Su­san Craig-James and the re­ports of the pos­si­ble res­ig­na­tion of at­tor­ney Roger Kawals­ingh.

“Who is giv­ing in­struc­tions on be­half of the com­mis­sion? Is it the chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad?” Ram­lo­gan said.

Mar­tineau dis­missed Ram­lo­gan’s con­cern as he stat­ed that the com­mis­sion still had staff, who con­tin­ue to al­low it to func­tion and de­fend on­go­ing lit­i­ga­tion against it.

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith

NICOLE DRAYTON

Ram­lo­gan stat­ed that while his client had in­di­cat­ed that he was con­sid­er­ing ask­ing Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo to re­cuse her­self from the case, he (Ma­haraj) would no longer be pur­su­ing the av­enue af­ter re­ceiv­ing a re­sponse from Kan­ga­loo on Sun­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the re­cusal was due to Kan­ga­loo’s al­leged fa­mil­iar con­nec­tion to Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, which Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo sub­se­quent­ly stat­ed has not ex­ist­ed for a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od of time.

Ram­lo­gan then took is­sue with the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at­tempt­ing to raise is­sue with the com­mis­sion’s ap­point­ment of Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob to act in the post, while Grif­fith was on va­ca­tion leave and now de­funct sus­pen­sion.

Ram­lo­gan sug­gest­ed that the AG’s Of­fice file a sep­a­rate law­suit to in­clude the is­sue.

At­tor­ney Rishi Dass, who led the State’s le­gal team, dis­agreed as he point­ed out that Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo had to con­sid­er all po­ten­tial ram­i­fi­ca­tions of Ma­haraj’s case.

“If it has con­se­quences in law then you can­not close your eyes to it,” Dass said.

Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo, who re­peat­ed­ly ex­pressed her de­sire to re­solve the case ex­pe­di­tious­ly, ad­vised the par­ties to stick to their dead­lines for fil­ings in the case, set dur­ing an ini­tial hear­ing last week. She ad­journed the case to Fri­day.

Grif­fith is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, Lar­ry Lal­la, Alvin Ram­roop, Michael Rooplal, and Kristy Mo­han. Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, Ravi Heffes-Doon, Do­minique Mar­tineau, and Sav­it­ri Sookraj-Be­har­ry are ap­pear­ing along­side Mar­tineau for the PSC. The AG’s Of­fice is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC.

Ma­haraj is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Jared Ja­groo, Natasha Bis­ram, and Vishaal Siewsaran.

About the cas­es

In the law­suit, two weeks ago, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj are claim­ing that the Com­mis­sion and by ex­ten­sion, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly when they cer­ti­fied Grif­fith’s act­ing ap­point­ment with­out fol­low­ing the process used to ap­point a sub­stan­tive com­mis­sion­er.

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj, un­der Sec­tion 123(4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, Par­lia­men­tary ap­proval was re­quired when the com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed that Grif­fith be giv­en an act­ing ap­point­ment af­ter his term end­ed on Au­gust 17.

In his law­suit, Grif­fith was claim­ing that the Com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend him, based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion re­lat­ed to the is­suance of firearm user’s li­cences (FULs), was ar­rived at in a man­ner that was un­fair.

Grif­fith was al­so claim­ing that his rights to nat­ur­al jus­tice and pro­tec­tion of the law, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, were breached.

Grif­fith’s move to file the law­suit came af­ter the com­mis­sion ini­tial­ly stood its ground on the sus­pen­sion.

Grif­fith sug­gest­ed that his sus­pen­sion was sole­ly based on the com­mis­sion ini­ti­at­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the is­su­ing of FULs and the han­dling of a re­cent in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Le­gal Unit Chris­t­ian Chan­dler on Sep­tem­ber 1.

For­mer Ap­pel­late Judge Stan­ley John was ap­point­ed to head the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which al­leged­ly arose out of a sep­a­rate probe by re­tired Rear Ad­mi­ral Hay­den Pritchard and re­tired Se­nior Supt Arthur Bar­ring­ton, ini­ti­at­ed by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC). The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has al­so be­gun an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

Grif­fith not­ed that he ac­ced­ed to re­quests by Jus­tice John on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and pro­vid­ed all the as­sis­tance he (John) re­quest­ed in­clud­ing records and in­ter­views with po­lice of­fi­cers.

Grif­fith has main­tained that he was in no way con­nect­ed to John’s on­go­ing probe.