The Court of Appeal is expected to hear an appeal over a move to lay the executive summary of an audit into firearm user’s licences (FULs) issued between 2016 and 2021 in Parliament in December.
The appeal was set to be heard yesterday, but earlier in the day the appeal panel rescheduled the hearing.
In the appeal, the National Security Council (NSC) led by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is challenging the decision of High Court Judge Devindra Rampersad to partially uphold the lawsuit brought by former police commissioner Gary Griffith.
In March, Justice Rampersad ruled that laying the executive summary of the report in Parliament, as previously proposed by Dr Rowley, was inappropriate.
However, he stated that it (the report) may be useful to the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the T&T Police Service (TTPS) as they are both currently conducting parallel investigations into the issue.
The outcome of the case was not a total success for Griffith as Justice Rampersad declined to invalidate the report over claims that the council was not empowered to initiate such a probe.
Justice Rampersad ruled that NSC was “quite” entitled to initiate the probe based on its far-ranging powers under Section 75 of the Constitution.
He also noted that the report could be considered by the NSC and Cabinet in order to assist in fine-tuning legislation based on its findings.
While he admitted that he was not asked to consider the fact that the audit committee was granted access to official police records that eventually formed part of their report, he raised concerns as he pointed to Police Service Regulations that make it a disciplinary offence for police officers to disclose official records.
Justice Rampersad also rejected Griffith’s claim that his due process rights were infringed by the committee’s failure to seek representations from him before producing its report.