Dana See­ta­hal

This col­umn has, for years, been ad­vis­ing that the Sautt, as present­ly con­sti­tut­ed, is not a le­gal or­gan­i­sa­tion. In re­sponse to that, the pre­vi­ous min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty claimed that it was "not il­le­gal," with­out say­ing why, and as if his mere state­ment was enough. In 2007, the then prime min­is­ter ad­vised in his bud­get speech that leg­is­la­tion was forth­com­ing to set a le­gal frame­work for Sautt with­in the year. Like many oth­er promis­es in re­la­tion to mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty by the last gov­ern­ment, this did not ma­te­ri­alise, al­though then Min­is­ter Joseph was as­sur­ing us, last Sep­tem­ber, that it would come be­fore the end of the year. In my view, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must deal with this gap as a mat­ter of ur­gency, if on­ly be­cause hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars have been al­lo­cat­ed in six years to an agency that is not ac­count­able to the cit­i­zens of T&T. In the 2004 bud­get, the then prime min­is­ter an­nounced for­ma­tion of Sautt, and sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed Brig Joseph as head of this unit.

Sautt con­sists of mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fence Force (Reg­i­ment and Coast Guard) and civil­ian per­son­nel. Orig­i­nal­ly, the po­lice arm of Sautt con­sist­ed of of­fi­cers who be­longed to the Po­lice Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit (the PSACU). By De­part­men­tal Or­der No 68, dat­ed March 11, 2004, is­sued by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, 37 po­lice of­fi­cers were trans­ferred from their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions/branch­es to the PSACU. These of­fi­cers were then as­signed to the SAUTT. This was the be­gin­ning of SAUTT, whose mem­bers were sub­se­quent­ly en­larged to in­clude, among oth­ers, Eng­lish po­lice­men, who were signed on as SRPs.

The Po­lice Ser­vice con­sists of di­vi­sions, branch­es, dis­tricts, as de­ter­mined by the min­is­ter, and un­der the reg­u­la­tions, the Com­mis­sion­er is en­ti­tled to es­tab­lish op­er­a­tional and ad­min­is­tra­tive units. Reg­u­la­tion 36 al­lows the Com­mis­sion­er to as­sign such num­bers of po­lice of­fi­cers to such ad­min­is­tra­tive or op­er­a­tional units as may be nec­es­sary for the ef­fi­cient func­tion­ing of the ser­vice.

Clear­ly, the un­der­pin­nings of the Po­lice Reg­u­la­tions and the Po­lice Act make it clear that all po­lice of­fi­cers are an­swer­able to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. How­ev­er, the Sautt is not a unit with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice; it is made up of mem­bers of both the De­fence Force and the po­lice, and as such was not es­tab­lished as a spe­cial unit in the Po­lice Ser­vice through a de­part­men­tal or­der or oth­er­wise. Fur­ther­more, a spe­cial unit with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice may com­prise on­ly po­lice of­fi­cers. The Po­lice Ser­vice Act cre­ates a chain of com­mand, with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice as the ul­ti­mate link in that chain. Po­lice of­fi­cers are ac­count­able to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (or to ei­ther the deputy or as­sis­tant act­ing in his place). While his pow­ers may be del­e­gat­ed to oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers by the Com­mis­sion­er, it would be ul­tra vires if he were to del­e­gate any of his pow­ers to a per­son who is not a po­lice of­fi­cer, and this is clear­ly not with­in the con­tem­pla­tion of the law.

The ul­ti­mate head of any unit with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice is, there­fore, the Com­mis­sion­er who cre­ates that unit. The ul­ti­mate head of the Sautt, we are told, is Brig Joseph. It is ar­guable that po­lice of­fi­cers with­in Sautt who take or­ders from or re­port to the Brigadier in the course of car­ry­ing out their du­ties as po­lice of­fi­cers may be con­sid­ered to be breach­ing the law, as are any se­nior of­fi­cers with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice who per­mit this. The De­fence Act is equal­ly silent as to the cre­ation of a unit which con­sists of mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment and Coast Guard, re­spec­tive­ly, and oth­er non-mem­bers. Sec­tion 5 of that act does make pro­vi­sion for the for­ma­tion of "such oth­er units as the Pres­i­dent may, from time to time, think fit to be formed." How­ev­er, the Pres­i­dent must de­clare this by no­ti­fi­ca­tion. There has, to date, been no no­ti­fi­ca­tion by the Pres­i­dent with re­spect to the cre­ation of an ad­di­tion­al unit as part of the De­fence Force.

Fur­ther, the De­fence Act gov­erns mem­bers of the De­fence Force and does not gov­ern mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice. In sum­ma­ry, there­fore, there is no law that pro­vides for the cre­ation of a unit that com­bines mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force (Reg­i­ment and Coast Guard). Rather, sep­a­rate Acts by Par­lia­ment gov­ern the cre­ation of units with­in each of these. As a re­sult, there is no le­gal au­thor­i­ty for the cre­ation of a unit such as Sautt. Fur­ther, there are no pub­lished pol­i­cy guide­lines in re­spect of the re­cruit­ment and/or ap­point­ment of Sautt mem­bers. Sautt is not the same as an in­ter-agency task force. There is noth­ing to pre­vent sep­a­rate units of the Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force work­ing to­geth­er (as in a task force), but there must be statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty for the cre­ation of a sin­gle unit head­ed by a com­man­der from whom all mem­bers of the unit take di­rec­tion.

Sautt ad­ver­tis­es for staff as one body, one unit. It has its own vote in the bud­get with­in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, just as the Po­lice Ser­vice, the Reg­i­ment, Coast Guard, and so on. It is treat­ed as a spe­cial, sep­a­rate and elite law en­force­ment body. Sautt, not be­ing ac­count­able to any law en­force­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion, may, in some ways, be con­sid­ered a law un­to it­self, and is open to be utilised as a "po­lit­i­cal tool" of the gov­ern­ment of the day, which spawned its cre­ation. There are no safe­guards in place to en­sure that this does not hap­pen. Whether this has, in fact, been done is an­oth­er mat­ter al­to­geth­er. For all the fore­go­ing rea­sons, it is im­per­a­tive that the au­thor­i­ties now clar­i­fy the sta­tus of Sautt, and re­frain from bury­ing their heads in the sand, as did the last gov­ern­ment.