Derek Achong

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Gillian Lucky re­signed sud­den­ly yes­ter­day, in ap­par­ent prepa­ra­tion for her ap­point­ment as a High Court Judge.Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease is­sued by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, Lucky, a lawyer and for­mer tem­po­rary High Court Judge, de­liv­ered her res­ig­na­tion let­ter to Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona around 1 pm. Her res­ig­na­tion, which comes over a year short of her five-year term, takes ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly.

While the rea­son for her un­ex­pect­ed de­ci­sion was not re­vealed in the ex­cerpts of her res­ig­na­tion let­ter to Car­mona, cit­ed in the re­lease, the T&T Guardian un­der­stands it is to fa­cil­i­tate her per­ma­nent ap­point­ment lat­er this week.

How­ev­er, her pro­posed ap­point­ment ap­pears to have caused a stir among some key le­gal and ju­di­cial of­fi­cials, who are ques­tion­ing her im­par­tial­i­ty con­sid­er­ing her open in­volve­ment in the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and her crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment in her week­ly news­pa­per col­umn and tele­vi­sion pro­gramme "Just Gill."They have ar­gued that judges must al­ways be seen by the pub­lic to be im­par­tial but her past ac­tions may make that im­pos­si­ble.

A source told the T&T Guardian that some con­cerned of­fi­cials planned to con­tact Car­mona to dis­cuss their con­cerns be­fore he even­tu­al­ly makes the ap­point­ment on the ad­vice of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC).Sev­er­al calls were made to Lucky's cell­phone up to late yes­ter­day but she did not an­swer. Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, Lucky thanked the Pres­i­dent and var­i­ous stake­hold­ers of the PCA, in­clud­ing the me­dia, for their sup­port dur­ing her tenure.

"Your Ex­cel­len­cy is as­sured that I leave the PCA know­ing that the deputy di­rec­tor and the mem­bers of staff will con­tin­ue to ful­fil the man­date of the PCA. I look for­ward to con­tin­ue ser­vice to my God and my coun­try," Lucky said in her res­ig­na­tion let­ter.Lucky's res­ig­na­tion comes less than a month af­ter for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man Prof Ramesh De­osaran re­signed for undis­closed rea­sons.

The re­lease stat­ed that af­ter re­ceiv­ing the let­ter yes­ter­day, Car­mona for­ward­ed it to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who will now have to meet and agree on Lucky's re­place­ment be­fore ad­vis­ing Car­mona on their de­ci­sion. "He (Car­mona) fur­ther in­ti­mat­ed that fail­ure to so ad­vise joint­ly would trig­ger his statu­to­ry and con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to ap­point a di­rec­tor af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with them," the re­lease said.

Fiery leader

Lucky was ap­point­ed the PCA's first di­rec­tor in De­cem­ber 2010 when the or­gan­i­sa­tion was formed, al­most four years af­ter the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act was passed by Par­lia­ment.But through­out her tenure, Lucky re­peat­ed­ly com­plained that the PCA was un­able to ful­ly achieve its man­date of in­ves­ti­gat­ing crim­i­nal of­fences by po­lice, po­lice cor­rup­tion and se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct.

Lucky, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, Cab­i­net mem­ber and Point-a-Pierre MP, lob­bied for am­mend­ments to the leg­is­la­tion, which she said would strength­en the PCA's abil­i­ty to con­duct in­de­pen­dent probes in­to al­le­ga­tions against po­lice by giv­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tors the pow­er to gath­er ev­i­dence and wit­ness state­ments which would be ad­mis­si­ble in court.

Lucky will al­so be re­mem­bered for be­ing very vo­cal as she took a lead role in sev­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions, in­clud­ing an ac­ci­dent in Sea Lots which claimed the lives of a moth­er and her two young daugh­ters and the mur­der of three Moru­ga res­i­dents in Ju­ly 2011, for which six po­lice of­fi­cers have been charged. Lucky al­so spear­head­ed an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the op­er­a­tions of the New Fly­ing Squad unit.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi thanked Lucky for her ded­i­ca­tion in the dis­charge of her du­ties but ques­tioned her "un­par­tic­u­larised" res­ig­na­tion.

"Miss Lucky's res­ig­na­tion fol­lows quick­ly on the heels of Mr De­osaran's res­ig­na­tion and sits in Gov­ern­ment's stone-faced si­lence as to the PNM's calls for an im­me­di­ate sit­ting of Par­lia­ment to re­form the un­holy mech­a­nisms for the ap­point­ment of the po­lice com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­ers," Al-Rawi said.He al­so claimed that the PNM was in sup­port of the rec­om­men­da­tions for re­forms in the PCA leg­is­la­tion for which Lucky ad­vo­cat­ed.

"The na­tion will re­call that the PNM had very spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions for the im­prove­ments of the PCA through a strength­en­ing of its pow­ers," Al-Rawi said.