Mark Bas­sant and

Derek Achong

The mael­strom of con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the ap­point­ment of Gary Grif­fith to act as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) in mid-Au­gust – which was re­scind­ed a month lat­er by the com­mis­sion in a ‘sus­pen­sion’ let­ter to Grif­fith – took an­oth­er eye-open­ing turn yes­ter­day evening when one of the PSC’s mem­bers, Court­ney Mc­Nish, hand­ed in his res­ig­na­tion.

Mc­Nish’s res­ig­na­tion came at a time when the com­mis­sion al­ready fac­ing three law­suits over its han­dling of the re­cruit­ment of the next Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

The re­main­ing mem­bers of the com­mis­sion, which usu­al­ly op­er­ates with five mem­bers, are chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad, so­ci­ol­o­gist Dr Su­san Craig-Jones and at­tor­ney Roger Kawals­ingh.

Mc­Nish’s res­ig­na­tion was an­nounced by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

The re­lease said Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes had ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion of the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Well-placed sources who spoke to Guardian Me­dia and were fa­mil­iar with the on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion, said Mc­Nish was not pleased with how Seep­er­sad han­dled the “sus­pen­sion” of Grif­fith in the first place.

“He was un­hap­py with how the chair­man han­dled the en­tire sit­u­a­tion. It was con­nect­ed to the sus­pen­sion let­ter that the chair­man is­sued on Sep­tem­ber 17,” the source said.

The source added, “He was very un­hap­py with the process and Mc­Nish, be­ing an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert, felt she did not fol­low the prop­er pro­ce­dure be­fore is­su­ing a sus­pen­sion. There is a process to fol­low and un­der the rel­e­vant In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act.”

An­oth­er source al­so in the know about the sit­u­a­tion, said there need­ed to be a dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing of some na­ture, “be­fore some­one can be sus­pend­ed.”

That source in­di­cat­ed that the re­main­ing mem­bers “seem to be caught in some un­cer­tain­ty as to what their next move may be.”

Guardian Me­dia was un­suc­cess­ful in its nu­mer­ous at­tempts to con­tact Mc­Nish for com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad a What­sApp mes­sage at 4.51 pm, which she lat­er read, as in­di­cat­ed by two blue ticks.

In the mes­sage sent by Guardian Me­dia, we asked Seep­er­sad for an in­ter­view on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion “in the in­ter­est of fair­ness, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy and not to cre­ate doubt in the pop­u­la­tion’s mind about the present sit­u­a­tion with the PSC.”

Guardian Me­dia of­fered to send the ques­tions via What­sApp but Seep­er­sad did not re­spond.

Mc­Nish’s res­ig­na­tion leaves the com­mis­sion with three re­main­ing mem­bers – Seep­er­sad, so­ci­ol­o­gist Dr Su­san Craig-James and at­tor­ney Roger Kawals­ingh.

Un­der Sec­tion 122 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the com­mis­sion con­sists of a chair­man and four mem­bers.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that de­spite Mc­Nish’s res­ig­na­tion, the com­mis­sion can still con­tin­ue to func­tion with a quo­rum of three mem­bers.

Mean­while, Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme with host Ja­son Williams yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, who served on the PSC for nine years, said that the cur­rent mem­bers had to break their si­lence on re­cent is­sues over the re­cruit­ment of a new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

George said: “It is in­cum­bent on the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to come out and make a pub­lic state­ment and clear the air on these is­sues and ques­tions that are swirling around.”

He sug­gest­ed that if they chose to ig­nore his ad­vice, it may have a dire ef­fect on pub­lic trust in the com­mis­sion.

“The pub­lic trust in our in­sti­tu­tions is of para­mount im­por­tance. With­out that, we will de­scend in­to an­ar­chy,” George said.

He sug­gest­ed that based on in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main over the re­cruit­ment process, it (the process) was in “a hot mess.”

“It ought to have been more prop­er­ly thought out be­fore we reached this crit­i­cal junc­ture,” George said.

George said based on his ex­pe­ri­ence on the com­mis­sion, there is an ur­gent need for re­forms.

He al­so said based on the phe­nom­e­nal amount of work re­quired by mem­bers to com­plete the process, they should be giv­en per­ma­nent ap­point­ments as op­posed to tem­po­rary post­ings.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that the re­cruit­ment and ap­point­ment process was mired in bu­reau­cra­cy.

“We re­al­ly don’t need this be­cause oth­er coun­tries do not go through this con­vo­lut­ed process to sim­ply ap­point a po­lice com­mis­sion­er...It is eas­i­er to ap­point a Chief Jus­tice or Pres­i­dent than a po­lice com­mis­sion­er,” George said.

Speak­ing on I95.5FM’s morn­ing show with hosts Tony Lee and Dale Enoch yes­ter­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly sug­gest­ed that the re­main­ing mem­bers of the com­mis­sion should re­sign over the on­go­ing de­ba­cle.

“They have let the coun­try down be­cause they have al­lowed a per­cep­tion to creep in that they are not act­ing in their own de­lib­er­ate judg­ment, so, of course, they should re­sign,” Daly said.

“The fact is they have got us in­to a mess and they should get out and al­low some­one to try to solve this.” Daly stat­ed that al­though it may be lim­it­ed by the on­go­ing law­suits, the com­mis­sion should still is­sue an of­fi­cial state­ment on its is­sues in a bid to save its (the Com­mis­sion) rep­u­ta­tion.

“There is a dis­tinct per­cep­tion that there are things go­ing on be­hind the scenes that we don’t know about,” Daly said.

He al­so claimed that the is­sues should not have arisen, as the com­mis­sion would have been aware of when Grif­fith’s con­tract was due to ex­pire and had the time to com­plete the process.

“The com­mis­sion should have man­aged that in a way that this kind of fi­as­co would not have arisen,” he said.