An unprecedented constitutional crisis over the appointment of a Commissioner of Police is now hovering over the country. As it now stands the country is without a Police Service Commission and thus there is no legal entity to select nominees and place same on a merit list for the President of the country to send to the Parliament so that a substantive Commissioner of Police could be selected and thus appointed.
The apparent crisis is that we have the anomaly of two acting Commissioners of Police purportedly appointed by the now defunct Police Service Commission, and the question of the legality of their respective appointments is before the Court.
At the end of his contract, Gary Griffith was appointed Acting Commissioner of Police but was subsequently sent on leave pending an investigation of corruption into the Police Service during his administration as Commissioner of Police.
He is now on leave of absence pending the selection and appointment of a regular/substantive Commissioner of Police by Parliament.
But the fly in the ointment of the acting appointments of both Gary Griffith and Jacobs is that their appointments are being questioned in a court of law.
And in this setting it must be noted that Jacobs’ acting appointment comes to an end on October 15 and since there is no Police Service Commission existing, he cannot be re-appointed to the post. And as far as Gary is concerned, the Government is of the view that his purported appointment as Acting Commissioner is illegal in that it was not done properly in accordance with the Constitution. I am also of that view.
So, the million dollar question on the minds of the population is: “Can Gary Griffith legally return to the Police Service as Acting Commissioner of Police upon the expiration of Jacob’s term on October 15?”
In the present scenario Gary Griffith has openly stated that he can legally return to take up his position as Acting Commissioner of Police and he intends to do so until a substantive Commissioner of Police is selected by Parliament and thus appointed.
He is holding on to an agreement between himself and the defunct PolSC that he take voluntary leave of absence pending the selection and appointment of a Substantive Commissioner of Police. It should be especially noted that Gary Griffith is in possession of a missive from the defunct Police Service Commission purportedly appointing him to act as Commissioner of Police.
But it appears that document is not even worth the paper that it is written on. And if the Court were to strike down his appointment as being illegal, that’s the end of his status as Acting Commissioner.
And as for Jacobs at the end on October 15, he would no longer be Acting Commissioner and this would leave the Police Service without a substantive or Acting Commissioner of Police. It is a frightening situation because the Police Service cannot legally operate without a “head.” It would cause confusion and chaos.
I say all this because it is reasonable to hold that the President would be unable to appoint a Police Service Commission before the expiration of Jacob’s term (15/10/21) in order for the Merit List to be sent to Parliament for the selection of a Commissioner.
But the Prime Minister is of the view that even without a substantive commissioner or Acting Commissioner in place, the Police Service can continue to legally and efficiently function with a Deputy Police Commissioner in place.
He dismissed the disquiet by the citizens who are of the view that a constitutional crisis exists with the curt comment that it is a “red herring and smoked herring.”
What the Prime Minister failed to acknowledge is that the Commissioner of Police is the only one legally clothed with a plenitude of power to efficiently manage the Police Service and if there is no Commissioner or Acting Commissioner, the membership of the thousands of police in the service would be unbridled which would create a recipe for indiscipline and disaster.
I thus urge the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition to put their narrow political differences on hold and come together in the spirit of nation building in order to solve the vexed problem of selecting and appointing a Commissioner of Police.
The locus standi of both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition putting their heads together for the selection/appointment of Commissioner of Police is grounded in the constitutional requirement that it is the Police Service Commission which must put the merit list together which goes to the President and then to Parliament. But the President must consult with the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition before Her Excellency in her own deliberate judgement selects and appoints the members of the Police Service Commission.
I surmise all this will take us beyond the 15th of October, the date of Jacob’s term as Acting Commissioner. The Court in its independent wisdom hearing the issues involving the de facto and de jure appointment of the so-called appointment of Gary Griffith can postpone its final decision/judgment in order for this sordid constitutional mess to be cleaned up.
But there would be voices raised that if Gary Griffith’s appointment as Acting Commissioner is illegal ab initio and if the Court is of that view, then the Judiciary cannot condone that he illegally presides as Acting Commissioner.
I wish to emphatically note that the Police Service must be totally free from all political influence in Trinidad and Tobago. Ours is a plural society with the vexed questions of class, race and political allegiance emerging in every general election. And the Privy Council in the matter of Appeal No. 47 of 1980 between Endell Thomas and the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago as far back as forty-one (41) years ago sounded a warning to us. It stated: “that political interference in the Police Service could enable a Government, composed of the leaders of the political party that happened to be in power... to treat the proper performance of their (police) public duties as subordinate to the furtherance of the party’s political aims. In the case of an armed police force with the potentiality for harassment that such a force possesses…open up the prospect of converting it into what in effect might function as a private army of the political party that obtained a majority of seats in Parliament.
The Privy Council also pointed out that the terms of qualification and the tenure of their office insulated the member of the Pol/SC from the “risk of being influenced in favour of the executive by consideration of advancement of their own careers”
The mess that caused the crumbling and dissolution of the PolSC is the allegation of political interference by a high ranking governmental official who caused the Chairman to withdraw the list of nominees from the hands of the President at President House. This jettisoned the process of appointing the country’s next Commissioner of Police. It is being rumoured that the government official was mandated to stump Gary Griffith as a nominee on the merit list for selection for the position of Commissioner. His name had topped all nominees on the list.
Martin Daly SC, Professor Deosaran and many other prominent independent commentators have condemned the political interference by the top public official in the affairs of the PolSC as an attempt to select and control the appointment of the Commissioner of Police and I thus suspect that in the fullness of time there will be an official enquiry into this matter because if true, it was a blatant attack on our democracy.
Trinidad and Tobago is a liberal democratic state and we need a Commissioner of Police in place for the Police Service to function legally.
The ordinary citizens are amused with the confusion created by some of our so-called enlightened and responsible leaders but at the same time very much concerned with the criminal activities of the criminals in our country.
This constitutional mess must be cleaned up: and I wonder whether, once again, we are the laughing stock of the free and democratic world.