Derek Achong

Mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, in­clud­ing its chair Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, are no longer re­quired to ap­pear be­fore a High Court Judge next month as he con­sid­ers an in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion from for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith seek­ing to block them from lay­ing the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of an au­dit in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearms De­part­ment in Par­lia­ment. 

Last Fri­day, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad is­sued the or­der sum­mon­ing the mem­bers of the coun­cil to court, as he grant­ed Grif­fith leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against them and the mem­bers of the au­dit com­mit­tee, in­clud­ing three re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers.

In a press re­lease is­sued late yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, point­ed out that the fol­low­ing day, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad is­sued a sec­ond or­der re­mov­ing the seg­ment which or­dered the ap­pear­ance of the mem­bers of the coun­cil be­fore him. 

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is­sues this clar­i­fi­ca­tion to en­sure that the pub­lic is cor­rect­ly in­formed of the state of these court pro­ceed­ings, to en­sure that due process of law takes prece­dence and wel­comes the ac­cu­rate and bal­anced ven­ti­la­tion of the per­ti­nent is­sues in this mat­ter,” Ar­mour said. 

The Cab­i­net mem­bers of the coun­cil list­ed in the law­suit are Dr Row­ley, Faris Al-Rawi, Fitzger­ald Hinds, Colm Im­bert, Stu­art Young and Mar­vin Gon­za­les. 
Grif­fith, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er be­tween 2018 and last year, de­tailed the rea­sons for the in­junc­tion in an af­fi­davit at­tached to his ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion.

In the doc­u­ment, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Grif­fith not­ed that when his term was due to end, he was ini­tial­ly se­lect­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) to act in the po­si­tion un­til they had com­plet­ed the re­cruit­ment process for the po­si­tion he reap­plied for. 

He not­ed that a high-lev­el gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, sub­se­quent­ly re­vealed to be Dr Row­ley based on his own ad­mis­sion, con­vinced for­mer PolSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad to with­draw the mer­it list for the act­ing ap­point­ment that was de­liv­ered to Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes. 

Grif­fith not­ed that he first learned of the au­dit when it was an­nounced by Hinds in his role as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter in No­vem­ber last year. 

Grif­fith said Hinds claimed that the au­dit was or­dered af­ter the coun­cil re­ceived a “fact-find­ing re­port” from re­tired ACP Arthur Bar­ring­ton and re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff Hay­den Pritchard and the PolSC re­ceived an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port from re­tired Judge Stan­ley John. 

The au­dit com­mit­tee con­sist­ed of re­tired ACPs Welling­ton Vir­gil and Ray­mond Craig and re­tired In­spec­tor Lennard Charles and in­clud­ed three serv­ing mem­bers of the TTPS. 

Grif­fith claimed that when the an­nounce­ment was made, Hinds did not re­veal the le­gal ba­sis for the ap­point­ment of the com­mit­tee, its terms of ref­er­ence or a time frame for com­ple­tion. 

He claimed that while the com­mit­tee con­duct­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pro­duced its re­port be­tween No­vem­ber last year and Ju­ly this year, he (Grif­fith) was nev­er con­tact­ed to be in­ter­viewed. 

Grif­fith claimed that af­ter he an­nounced that he had formed a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), and reap­plied for the post of po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Dr Row­ley made com­ments over the fi­nal au­dit re­port and sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to lay the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry in Par­lia­ment. 
He al­so com­plained that the re­port was leaked to a news­pa­per. 

Grif­fith claimed that he was seek­ing the in­junc­tion to pre­vent fur­ther un­jus­ti­fied dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion. 

“In the cir­cum­stances set out above, I feared that un­less re­strained, the Prime Min­is­ter was in­tent on lay­ing the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry or oth­er parts of the re­port in Par­lia­ment, there­by caus­ing di­rect, un­jus­ti­fied and un­quan­tifi­able dam­age to my rep­u­ta­tion and good name,” Grif­fith said. 

In the doc­u­ment, Grif­fith claimed that the coun­cil had no pow­er to ap­point the com­mit­tee and de­scribed the process as ir­ra­tional.

“The en­tire au­dit process has now been ir­re­triev­ably taint­ed by bad faith and il­le­gal­i­ty and that no sub­se­quent hear­ing by the au­dit com­mit­tee or any oth­er per­son or body can sani­tise the au­dit process,” he said.  

Through the law­suit, Grif­fith is seek­ing the in­junc­tion and a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over what tran­spired and an or­der quash­ing the en­tire re­port or as­pects of it which deal with his per­for­mance as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad will con­sid­er the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion on No­vem­ber 9.
 Grif­fith is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Avory Sinanan, SC, and Lar­ry Lal­la.