Dix­ie Ann Dick­son

Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan says Gov­ern­ment can­not ap­point a for­eign­er as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at his cham­bers on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Khan cit­ed Po­lice Ser­vice Act: Chap 15:01 of the re­cruit­ment process, which states "can­di­dates for ap­point­ment as po­lice con­sta­bles shall be of good char­ac­ter and be cit­i­zens of T&T." Khan said the reg­u­la­tion and act should be recog­nised. "I am alert­ing the Gov­ern­ment to a cer­tain in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Act and I ex­pect them to go back to the law books to have it de­bat­ed," Khan said.

"If I am right, I ex­pect them to do the right thing," he added. Khan said he made sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan yes­ter­day but it proved fu­tile. He said he had no al­ter­na­tive but to he call an ur­gent me­dia con­fer­ence. Khan said be­cause the is­sue would be de­bat­ed to­day in Par­lia­ment he want­ed to get the in­for­ma­tion out as soon as pos­si­ble, so it would form part of the dis­cus­sion. He said if the Gov­ern­ment failed to ad­dress that as­pect of the is­sue, he would re­search the mat­ter fur­ther to de­ter­mine whether a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion could be filed.