Derek Achong

A so­cial ac­tivist has brought an in­ter­pre­ta­tion law­suit over the de­ci­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to give for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith an act­ing ap­point­ment af­ter his three-year stint in the post end­ed last month. 

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

In his fixed date claim form, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj’s lawyers claim that his con­cerns over the le­gal­i­ty of the act­ing ap­point­ment were com­pound­ed by the fact that Grif­fith was al­lowed to go on va­ca­tion leave short­ly af­ter. 

“The Claimant does not know if Mr Grif­fith was al­lowed to pro­ceed on va­ca­tion leave based on leave which was ac­cu­mu­lat­ed un­der the ex­pired con­tract of em­ploy­ment or whether it is leave that was tak­en un­der a new con­tract of em­ploy­ment that per­tains to his act­ing ap­point­ment,” Ma­haraj’s lawyers said. 

How­ev­er, they claimed that Grif­fith’s ini­tial con­tract stat­ed that all va­ca­tion leave shall be tak­en with­in the term of en­gage­ment. 

Ma­haraj’s lawyers claimed that the is­sues in the law­suit had to be de­ter­mined by a court be­cause of pub­lic con­cern based on the Com­mis­sion’s si­lence on the is­sues. 

“It has the po­ten­tial to bring the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mr Grif­fith (who is but an in­no­cent ca­su­al­ty in all of this be­cause he is not re­spon­si­ble for his own ap­point­ment be it sub­stan­tive or act­ing) and the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion in­to dis­re­pute,” they said. 

At­tached to Ma­haraj’s claim was a cer­tifi­cate of ur­gency seek­ing to jus­ti­fy the ur­gent hear­ing of the case. 

“There is a ra­tio­nale for sub­ject­ing an ap­point­ment to the high­est of­fice in the Po­lice Ser­vice to the ap­proval of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which in­cludes in­su­lat­ing the com­mis­sion from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, be it di­rect or in­di­rect, whilst pro­vid­ing for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the process and pub­lic ven­ti­la­tion of any is­sues con­cern­ing the ap­point­ment,” they said. 

“There­fore, the mat­ter is one that re­quires an ex­pe­di­tious hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion,” they added. 

Through the law­suit, Ma­haraj is seek­ing a de­ter­mi­na­tion of whether Par­lia­men­tary ap­proval is re­quired, as claimed by him, and a cor­re­spond­ing de­c­la­ra­tion that Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment was il­le­gal with­out it. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Ma­haraj’s law­suit is sched­uled to come up for hear­ing be­fore High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo to­mor­row af­ter­noon. 

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