Derek Achong
Senior Reporter
Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher has scored a major legal victory in her defence of lawsuits over delays in deciding applications under the Firearms Act.
The Court of Appeal yesterday reversed a decision by a High Court Judge to uphold a lawsuit from a firearm dealer over delays by the Office of the Police Commissioner in deciding his two applications to import a large cache of ammunition.
Delivering a judgment, yesterday morning, Appellate Judges Mark Mohammed, Peter Rajkumar and Ronnie Boodoosingh ruled that High Court Judge Kevin Ramcharan got it wrong in November, last year when he approved the lawsuit brought by Towfeek Ali and his company the Firearms Training Institute Limited.
Provided that the Appeal Court’s decision is not eventually overturned by the United Kingdom-based Privy Council, the case would set a precedent about several pending cases over delays in deciding firearm user’s licence (FUL) applications.
In June 2022, Ali and his company made two applications to import a large quantity of assorted ammunition.
Ali and his company wrote to the T&T Police Service (TTPS) after they did not receive a response to the applications, which usually take one month to approve.
Almost two months later, TTPS legal officer Naomi Herbert responded and requested two weeks to ascertain the status of the applications.
The case was filed after Herbert failed to respond.
In her defence, Harewood-Christopher claimed that in June 2022, her predecessor, acting police commissioner McDonald Jacob, decided to temporarily halt the processing of firearm import permits and she continued it (the decision) after she was appointed later that year.
She claimed that the decision was based on deficiencies in the TTPS internal processes for granting such permits, allegations of corruption in the granting of FULs, the general state of gun violence in T&T and the failure of some firearm dealers to provide relevant data as required.
While Justice Ramcharan noted that the decision to halt processing of applications may have been initially justified, he questioned why Ali and the company were not informed of the reasons for such and given estimates.
Some aspects of the application were determined months before Justice Ramcharan’s ruling, while the remaining aspects were determined shortly after it (the ruling) was issued.
In their decision, the judges rejected claims that the appeal was academic based on Harewood-Christopher deciding the applications as they pointed to the pending cases.
He noted that his colleague did not properly consider whether the delay was unreasonable in the circumstances highlighted by Harewood-Christopher.
“He erred in law when he did not conduct any analysis which demonstrated that while he considered the failure of the CoP to provide a realistic estimate as to when a decision on the applications might be made, that he also considered and balanced that factor against all the circumstances and in particular the explanation of her consideration of public safety and national security put forward by the CoP as explanatory of the delay,” Justice Rajkumar said.
He also ruled that the judge was wrong to criticise Harewood-Christopher for failing to provide an estimated completion time.
In a statement issued, yesterday evening, Ali and his company indicated that they intend to lodge an urgent appeal before the Privy Council.
Since January, several cases have been upheld by judges over Harewood-Christopher’s delay in deciding FUL applications.