DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness­man from San Juan has agreed to with­draw his law­suit over de­lays in de­cid­ing his firearm user’s li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tion af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher agreed to ren­der a de­ci­sion with­in six months. 

In April, the busi­ness­man, whose name was with­held based on the re­quest of his at­tor­neys over safe­ty con­cerns, filed a ju­di­cial re­view case over the de­lay. When the case came up for hear­ing on Tues­day, his lawyers, led by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, and those for Hare­wood-Christo­pher pre­sent­ed a con­sent or­der to set­tle the case.

The or­der was con­sid­ered and ap­proved by Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad. Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the busi­ness­man first ap­plied for an FUL in 2010.

In June 2021, he was grant­ed a pro­vi­sion­al FUL. The fol­low­ing month, he com­plet­ed a manda­to­ry firearms train­ing course and ob­tained a cer­tifi­cate of com­pe­tence. In Sep­tem­ber 2023, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms Per­mit Unit con­tact­ed the busi­ness­man and told him that the cer­tifi­cate had been re­ceived and he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

How­ev­er, he was told that “some crit­i­cal as­pects were not cov­ered” to al­low the com­mis­sion­er to make a de­ci­sion. 

The case is one of many re­cent law­suits filed by FUL ap­pli­cants who chal­lenged de­lays in ren­der­ing de­ci­sions in re­la­tion to them. 

In March, Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo or­dered Hare­wood-Christo­pher to de­cide on 17 FUL ap­pli­ca­tions that had been pend­ing for two years or more, as she up­held a sim­i­lar case to the one brought by the busi­ness­man.

Her de­ci­sion in their case came al­most two months af­ter she up­held an iden­ti­cal law­suit from 33 ap­pli­cants.

 In late March, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad up­held a sim­i­lar case from a To­ba­go busi­ness­man over an al­most three-year de­lay in de­cid­ing his FUL ap­pli­ca­tion.