As the war of words con­tin­ue be­tween Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith and the Ju­di­cia­ry, Grif­fith's lat­est ut­ter­ance is said to have pos­si­bly left a "tox­ic taste in the mouths of mem­bers of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty."

How­ev­er, Grif­fith has dis­missed this and vowed to watch all crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­neys "like a hawk."

Grif­fith said last week that some prac­ti­tion­ers of the crim­i­nal bar are now be­ing looked at by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for the as­sis­tance they are giv­ing to crim­i­nals.

The CoP spoke out against Se­nior Mag­is­trate Aiden Stroude. The mag­is­trate chas­tised a po­lice of­fi­cer who came to court but was un­able to present the court with a sum­ma­ry of the ev­i­dence against the al­leged of­fend­er and his crim­i­nal record his­to­ry.

This dere­lic­tion of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by the said of­fi­cer meant that the court could not prop­er­ly ad­dress the suit­abil­i­ty of the civil­ian for bail. The mat­ter was sub­se­quent­ly ad­journed and the civil­ian was re­mand­ed to prison overnight un­til the crim­i­nal record was avail­able.

De­fend­ing him­self and his col­leagues, at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali sought to ex­plain that the un­sus­pect­ing pub­lic, as well as the CoP, may not be aware that with the ad­vent of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules which gov­erns ju­di­cial pro­ce­dure in a court of law that a civil­ian charged for a crim­i­nal of­fence must be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­ti­tled to a “prompt hear­ing” be­fore a court of law. Fur­ther, he added, every in­di­vid­ual charged be­fore a court has a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to bail.

"There­fore, a court of law must not de­ny any civil­ian his right to lib­er­ty ex­cept by due process of law. Mag­is­trate Stroude was cor­rect in law as he was em­pha­sis­ing what was re­quired for the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the up­hold­ing of the rule of law when he un­der­lined the in­com­pe­tence of the po­lice of­fi­cer on the day in ques­tion," Ali said.

"The TTPS must recog­nise that its func­tion with­in the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T is es­sen­tial­ly an ex­ec­u­tive one where they are to ful­fil the re­quire­ments of in­ves­tiga­tive work on would-be crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and to charge if the law al­lows. The TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion must pro­vide sup­port­ing ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate a charge. Gary Grif­fith seems to be un­aware of the strict func­tions of the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice."

Ali said the CoP must ex­e­cute the law in a fair and un­bi­ased man­ner with­out over­step­ping con­sti­tu­tion­al bound­aries es­tab­lished by the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T. "In oth­er words, it would be of greater as­sis­tance to the TTPS and its CoP to spend more time per­fect­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and gath­er­ing ev­i­dence that can with­stand the scruti­ny of crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­neys and the court as op­posed to com­ment­ing on how the leg­is­la­ture should form laws and the man­ner in which the Ju­di­cia­ry ad­ju­di­cates."

Ali not­ed that in the re­cent past Grif­fith was al­so crit­i­cal of the rul­ing of Se­nior Mag­is­trate Cheryl-Ann Blake for grant­i­ng bail to an in­di­vid­ual charged for hav­ing nine as­sault ri­fles.

Grif­fith pub­licly crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion to grant bail say­ing that the court was prov­ing to be a re­volv­ing door for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, Ali said it ap­pears that the CoP was in­sin­u­at­ing the work of the po­lice in ar­rest­ing crim­i­nal of­fend­ers "was not bear­ing fruit if they are sub­se­quent­ly re­leased in­to so­ci­ety."

"What­ev­er the CoP's per­son­al views about the man­age­ment of the state of T&T it is not be­com­ing of his of­fice to tell the Ju­di­cia­ry how to ad­ju­di­cate up­on the law and the leg­is­la­ture what laws should be passed," Ali said.

"The CoP fail­ure to al­le­vi­ate the pub­lic fears of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and its dele­te­ri­ous ef­fects has proven to be the hall­mark of his tenure as CoP. For the CoP to now di­rect his skewed think­ing process­es to­wards at­tor­neys of the crim­i­nal bar who he is of the view ad­vise “crim­i­nals” is puerile." ]

Ali said the TTPS must sim­ply up its game and be­come more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive. "The CoP lat­est cut that the TTPS is now look­ing at 'crim­i­nal lawyers' who have been as­sist­ing crim­i­nals is in­dica­tive of an ego that has suf­fered at the hands of the up­surge of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and homi­cide with­in his woe­ful tenure as CoP."

TTPS do­ing its job—Grif­fith

Grif­fith, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to Ali, said he will con­tin­ue to watch all de­fence at­tor­neys "like a hawk."

"Crime is big busi­ness and I ask the coun­try to note who in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that takes of­fence to me speak­ing the truth. This is big busi­ness for some and they seem to have lost their way so they would in­deed be of­fend­ed by me re­veal­ing the facts. Those who ob­ject to my fac­tu­al com­ments are those who de­fend these el­e­ments. So their job is to get crim­i­nals back out un­to the streets, and there is no con­cern to them that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens could be af­fect­ed.

"This is al­so why they have is­sues with the po­lice. Our job is to ar­rest those who they de­fend. As I said, there are crim­i­nal lawyers and there are lawyer crim­i­nals. If the truth hurts, that is their prob­lem. Not mine. I am watch­ing them like a hawk," Grif­fith said.

He said Ali and oth­ers seem to have an ob­ses­sion to get those charged with try­ing to de­stroy the coun­try out on bail so they could con­tin­ue their trade on in­no­cent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. "Ali and oth­ers seem un­aware or ig­no­rant of such ac­tions. But they have their morales and I have mine.

"In con­trast to the pa­thet­ic at­tempt by an in­di­vid­ual who is hired by hard­ened crim­i­nals to get them re­leased in quick time, the TTPS is do­ing its job."

Grif­fith strong­ly be­lieves that his tenure, com­ments and ac­tions seem to be both­er­ing Ali and his clients, "I thank him for con­firm­ing that I am on the right track. For far too long the scales of jus­tice have favoured crim­i­nal el­e­ments. I in­tend to ex­pose it and do what is re­quired to tilt it to­wards the rights of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. My oath and du­ty are to my God and coun­try. I have a na­tion and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to de­fend. The job of oth­ers is to de­fend those who com­mit vi­o­lent crime. So I ex­pect them to bray loud­er, as, I have on­ly now start­ed to rum­ble."