At­tor­ney and for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mem­ber Mar­tin George, says the Op­po­si­tion has valid con­cerns about the se­lec­tion process of the act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and deputy po­lice com­mis­sion­ers.

On Fri­day, the Op­po­si­tion re­ject­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, which sought to al­low the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) to ap­point act­ing com­mis­sion­ers with­out the ap­proval of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

George, who spoke on the is­sue dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, said con­cerns by the Op­po­si­tion that some­one who is not on the mer­it list could be ap­point­ed are jus­ti­fied.

“If it is you are talk­ing specif­i­cal­ly about pulling per­sons from the mer­it list, that is one of the is­sues that the Op­po­si­tion raised. They asked, can you (the Gov­ern­ment) con­firm for sure that it’s go­ing to be the next per­son on the mer­it list who is go­ing to be ap­point­ed as the act­ing com­mis­sion­er, in such a cir­cum­stance where you want to short-cir­cuit the par­lia­men­tary process? And I think it’s a valid ques­tion that was raised,” George, who is al­so the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man, said.

George, how­ev­er, agreed that the cur­rent se­lec­tion process is too slow and com­pli­cat­ed.

“It is an un­nec­es­sary, cum­ber­some process, and most civilised coun­tries in the world do not have such a process, and yet, they are able to ap­point com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice in their coun­tries, so we need to look at that fun­da­men­tal­ly,” he added.

He be­lieves this should be ad­dressed by the way of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

“If it is that we do ever achieve some mean­ing­ful and re­al­is­tic con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, one of the things that need to be over­hauled en­tire­ly is the en­tire se­lec­tion process for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, at present, it’s eas­i­er to ap­point a pres­i­dent, its eas­i­er to ap­point a chief jus­tice, its eas­i­er to ap­point a prime min­is­ter, than it is to ap­point a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice,” George said.  

Dur­ing the de­bate, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour pro­posed an amend­ment that said par­lia­men­tary ap­proval would be need­ed for any act­ing ap­point­ment ex­ceed­ing 21 days. How­ev­er, the bill which need­ed a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty to be passed was still re­ject­ed.