A busi­ness­man from south Trinidad has been al­lowed to pur­sue a law­suit against the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, over a 19-year de­lay in de­cid­ing on his firearm user’s li­cense (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tion.

The man, whose name was with­held due to his at­tor­neys’ fear of him be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals, was grant­ed leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view case by High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed yes­ter­day. 

In his court fil­ings, the man claimed that he first ap­plied for a FUL in De­cem­ber 2003. 

An of­fi­cer from the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and sev­er­al months lat­er, he was told that his ap­pli­ca­tion would be rec­om­mend­ed by a Su­per­in­ten­dent. 

Three years lat­er, he was asked to sub­mit a cer­tifi­cate of char­ac­ter. He com­plied but on­ly re­ceived a re­sponse the fol­low­ing year, when he was asked if he was still in­ter­est­ed in pur­su­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion and to re­sub­mit a cer­tifi­cate of char­ac­ter, a fit­ness cer­tifi­cate, a let­ter from his spouse and his hunt­ing per­mits. 

He again com­plied and was the sub­ject of a sec­ond in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by an­oth­er of­fi­cer. He was again told that his rec­om­mend­ed ap­pli­ca­tion would be sent to the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice for fi­nal ap­proval.

In May 2015, he was con­tact­ed by an­oth­er of­fi­cer and told that due to the pas­sage of time, he was re­quired to re­sub­mit the doc­u­ments if he was still in­ter­est­ed in the FUL. He com­plied and the of­fi­cer con­duct­ed a third in­ves­ti­ga­tion and promised the rec­om­men­da­tion.

 Con­cerned by the lengthy de­lay and process, the man claimed he made sev­er­al checks at the Firearms Sec­tion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and wrote to for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith. 

In De­cem­ber 2020, he was con­tact­ed by a fourth in­ves­ti­ga­tor, who al­so re­quest­ed the re­sub­mis­sion of the doc­u­ments. The in­ves­ti­ga­tor promised that feed­back would be forth­com­ing but he re­ceived none. 

In the law­suit, the man’s at­tor­neys are claim­ing that the de­lay is un­rea­son­able and un­law­ful. 

“The in­tend­ed de­fen­dant has failed to per­form his statu­to­ry du­ty by fail­ing to make a de­ci­sion with re­spect to the in­tend­ed claimant’s ap­pli­ca­tion for a FUL,” his at­tor­ney Rhea Khan said.

She al­so sought to pre-empt claims over the cur­rent sus­pen­sion of the Firearms Unit due to an au­dit in­to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion.

“If an au­dit is re­quired, the same could on­ly de­lay the in­tend­ed claimant’s ap­pli­ca­tion for a rea­son­able pe­ri­od of time,” Khan said. 

“The in­tend­ed claimant’s ap­pli­ca­tion has been gross­ly de­layed and the in­tend­ed de­fen­dant has of­fered no in­for­ma­tion on when the said process would be com­plet­ed or when his ap­pli­ca­tion would be processed,” she added. 

The man is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh and Ste­fan Ramkissoon. 

A case man­age­ment con­fer­ence in the case is sched­uled for June 24.

—Derek Achong

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