Geisha Kow­lessar

Chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Christo­pher Thomas has said maybe the time has come for Gov­ern­ment to change the law re­gard­ing the se­lec­tion process for the role of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. Thomas made the com­ments fol­low­ing a press brief­ing yes­ter­day by the com­mis­sion at Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann's. Ac­cord­ing to Thomas, the le­gal process pro­vid­ed cer­tain cri­te­ria for the se­lec­tion process, in­clud­ing invit­ing for­eign ap­pli­cants.

He said: "Whether the cri­te­ria is spread too wide­ly it is a mat­ter for Par­lia­ment. We don't make those de­ci­sions. It is up to the Gov­ern­ment. "If the Gov­ern­ment of the day de­cides it does not want a for­eign­er then they will have to go back to Par­lia­ment to change the law and per­haps they need to look at that." He said as the law stood at the mo­ment, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ap­pli­cants were in­vit­ed to ap­ply, adding that the process was not re­strict­ed to lo­cals.

He added: "If Par­lia­ment did not ac­cept the first nom­i­nee on the grounds that he was a for­eign­er then they would not ac­cept the sec­ond and third. "But that is not a de­ci­sion for the com­mis­sion. It is one for Par­lia­ment." Say­ing the com­mis­sion's role was re­strict­ed, Thomas said it did not in­clude ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures of the se­lec­tion process.