DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A Coast Guard of­fi­cer from St Joseph has been grant­ed per­mis­sion to sue the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over a decade-long de­lay in de­cid­ing his firearm user’s li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tion. 

On Tues­day, High Court Judge Karen Reid grant­ed the of­fi­cer, whose name was with­held due to per­son­al safe­ty con­cerns, leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the de­lay. 

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the of­fi­cer first ap­plied for an FUL in 2015. 

In 2016, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion pur­suant to the ap­pli­ca­tion, and the of­fi­cer sup­plied the in­for­ma­tion re­quest­ed by the in­ves­ti­ga­tor. 

Lat­er that year, the of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the TTPS’s Firearms Per­mit Unit for an up­date on his ap­pli­ca­tion and was told that the in­ves­ti­ga­tor had not ob­ject­ed to his ap­pli­ca­tion. He was told the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er had to make a fi­nal de­ci­sion on whether it should be grant­ed or not. 

The of­fi­cer re­port­ed­ly vis­it­ed the of­fice sev­er­al times af­ter that but re­ceived no up­date. 

In Feb­ru­ary 2023, he re­ceived an email from the unit, which in­di­cat­ed that the ap­pli­ca­tion was be­ing re­viewed. He de­cid­ed to file the case af­ter he re­ceived no fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the unit. 

While the of­fi­cer’s lawyer Keron Ramkhal­whan ad­mit­ted that there is no time lim­it un­der the Firearms Act for de­cid­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion, a decade is un­rea­son­able. 

“The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has been pro­vid­ed suf­fi­cient time to com­plete any fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the firearm file and the pro­vi­sion­al li­cence ought to be is­sued forth­with,” Ramkhal­whan said. 

In his af­fi­davit at­tached to the law­suit, the of­fi­cer sought to give his views on gen­er­al de­lays in de­cid­ing FULs, in­clud­ing in his case. 

“It is as­sert­ed that the Com­mis­sion­er is wil­ful­ly breach­ing her statu­to­ry du­ty by fail­ing to is­sue FULs to el­i­gi­ble law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” he said. 

“This dere­lic­tion of du­ty ex­pos­es the pub­lic to height­ened risks posed by crim­i­nal el­e­ments and con­sti­tutes a sig­nif­i­cant im­ped­i­ment to the law­ful ex­er­cise of the right to self-de­fence and per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty,” he added. 

Through the law­suit, the of­fi­cer is seek­ing to com­pel the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to ren­der a de­ci­sion on his FUL. 

Af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed to the post in 2023, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was in­un­dat­ed with lit­i­ga­tion over long-out­stand­ing FUL ap­pli­ca­tions, most of which pre-dat­ed her tenure. 

The lit­i­ga­tion came while the TTPS was do­ing a ma­jor au­dit in­to the is­su­ing of FULs.  

While the re­sults of the au­dit were not made pub­lic, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed that it un­earthed sig­nif­i­cant anom­alies in the pro­ce­dure for is­su­ing FULs. 

Many of the cas­es have been de­ter­mined, and the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s Of­fice has been giv­en dead­lines for ren­der­ing de­ci­sions. 

In late Jan­u­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was placed on sus­pen­sion af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed, with­out charge, in re­la­tion to a probe in­to the pro­cure­ment and im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA). 

New­ly-elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has promised that her Gov­ern­ment would seek to amend leg­is­la­tion to make it eas­i­er for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to be grant­ed FULs in light of home in­va­sions and rob­beries.

The of­fi­cer is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by An­war Ho­sein, Lloyd Robin­son, and Sumayya Dupraj. 

His case is sched­uled to come up for case man­age­ment on Sep­tem­ber 22.