Renu­ka Singh

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ques­tion­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the de­tails of how the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice mer­it list got re­called.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the is­sue dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Night Fo­rum and said there were some dis­crep­an­cies with the dates re­lat­ed to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice mer­it list at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.

She said in a let­ter to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, the Pres­i­dent made no men­tion that the mer­it list was with­drawn.

“Why was such crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion be­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly with­held from the court? Or is it that Her Ex­cel­len­cy in­formed her lawyer, Faris Al-Rawi, through whose of­fice she was rep­re­sent­ed in the mat­ter, but the AG failed to in­form the court?” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the three se­nior of­fice­hold­ers had ques­tions to an­swer.

“The Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and AG (At­tor­ney Gen­er­al) have even more se­ri­ous ques­tions to an­swer right now, as a re­sult of the Prime Min­is­ter’s hot-head­ed press con­fer­ence,” she said.

“When did the Prime Min­is­ter ad­vise the (Po­lice Ser­vice) Com­mis­sion that he had lost faith in the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice? What caused the loss of faith?” she asked.

On Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he wrote to the PSC to reg­is­ter his loss of con­fi­dence in Grif­fith. De­spite ques­tions, he did not say what trig­gered that let­ter.

“Did he write on­ly the chair­man or did he write all the com­mis­sion­ers?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked.

She al­so asked whether the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the rest of Cab­i­net were aware of the let­ter, or if the PM did it on his own.

She is al­so ques­tion­ing whether the PSC ig­nored the Prime Min­is­ter’s let­ter from a year ago, reg­is­ter­ing his loss of con­fi­dence in then Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and whether that prompt­ed him to “go over their heads to sab­o­tage the process of ap­point­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so asked whether it was just a co­in­ci­dence that the PM and PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad end­ed up at the Pres­i­dent’s of­fice.

“If every­thing is above board, why is the Pres­i­dent run­ning from dis­clos­ing the pub­lic of­fi­cial who met at Pres­i­dent’s House, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the pub­lic in­ter­est,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi now had “se­ri­ous” ques­tions to an­swer re­lat­ed to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s le­gal de­part­ment.

“This At­tor­ney Gen­er­al con­tin­ues to tram­ple on the Con­sti­tu­tion. This is be­cause he just does not un­der­stand the fun­da­men­tals and sa­cred prin­ci­ples up­on which our Con­sti­tu­tion is found­ed,” she said.

“The prin­ci­ple of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers is cen­tral to the struc­ture of our Con­sti­tu­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion (DPP) was in­de­pen­dent.

“One of the es­sen­tial func­tions of the DPP is to pro­vide ad­vice and guid­ance to the po­lice ser­vice when it con­cerns very se­ri­ous crim­i­nal mat­ters,” she said.

She said the DPP’s of­fice is ex­pect­ed to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion on the mat­ter in­volv­ing the le­gal ad­vi­sor to the TTPS, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler.

Chan­dler is on leave and un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter a 27-year old woman claimed she was held against her will aboard a yacht owned and op­er­at­ed by Chan­dler.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the AG pro­vid­ed le­gal ad­vice on that mat­ter, say­ing Chan­dler did not breach COVID-19 health reg­u­la­tions.

“Se­ri­ous ques­tions must now be asked about the con­duct of the AG in re­la­tion to this mat­ter. Mr Chadler is no or­di­nary cit­i­zen, he is the head of the TTPS le­gal de­part­ment,” she said.

She said the al­le­ga­tions against him were “very, very se­ri­ous.”

“So I ask you, how on earth could the AG be ad­vis­ing the po­lice on such a sen­si­tive mat­ter? How could he be do­ing that? Who made the re­quest to the AG for le­gal ad­vice? When was the re­quest made and why was it made,” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the AG should have di­rect­ed this mat­ter to the DPP.

“Faris, no mat­ter how many law ex­ams you fail, cer­tain­ly as an AG, you should have ap­pre­ci­at­ed that you were act­ing un­law­ful­ly by tres­pass­ing on the of­fice of the DPP,” she said.

She said Al-Rawi had breached the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

“This reck­less and care­less ac­tion is the most dan­ger­ous prece­dent,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Al-Rawi was a se­r­i­al of­fend­er in these mat­ters.

“He acts as if he is the DPP’s boss and the DPP is his sub­or­di­nate and noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth,” she said.

“The DPP is not sub­ject to his di­rec­tion and con­trol in any form or fash­ion.

“To­day, we have been plunged in­to a Con­sti­tu­tion­al abyss by an un­holy al­liance of three of the high­est of­fices: Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.

“Like a virus, this mat­ter has gone so far as to in­fect the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and the TTPS. These high of­fice­hold­ers have very se­ri­ous ques­tions to an­swer.”