What will be the consequences of the recent high court judgement that favoured a former Commissioner of Police, awarding him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his reputation being damaged?
Political scientist, Professor Hamid Ghany addressed this and other questions arising from the judgement in this week’s TTT Focus.
On November 4, the court handed down a judgement in favour of former Commissioner of Police, Gary Griffith.
The court ordered former chairman of the Police Service Commission, Bliss Seepersad to pay Mr. Griffith quarter of a million dollars in compensation.
Political scientist, Professor Hamid Ghany dissected the events which led to the court case and the possible consequences of the judgement.
He noted that case stemmed from the commission’s actions in 2021.
“They had an order of merit list. On the day that it was being delivered to the Office of the President something happened and there was a third person present and as a consequence of that, whatever took place at President’s House led to the Commission, the chair of the Commission recalling the list and the President surrendering the list. The surrender of the list was the political issue in the electoral college, the recall of the list and its failure to be ratified by the Commission was the subject of the legal proceedings that we had, that was decided this week gone.”
Professor Ghany delved into the meaning of High Court Justice Devindra Ramcharan’s judgement.
“Whether a chairman can recall a merit list from the President. What the judge was saying was that in his opinion yes that can be done but you need the Commission to ratify that decision. The chairman cannot unilaterally. And on the other side, what has not yet been determined and settled is the question of whether a president ought to surrender the list upon the request of a service commission after the president has already received the list.”
The political scientist also looked at what the judgement will mean for the choosing of a Commissioner of Police going forward
“This government has continued to support the process because Allister Guevarro was appointed through this very same process as commissioner of police. And then you have a couple weeks ago, either last week or the week before deputy commissioner Ramesar, who was confirmed thus far, and you’ve had others who have passed through the process. So I think that, I am not sensing that this government intends to attempt any change to the process.”
While former Commissioner Griffith was awarded quarter of a million dollars for the reputational harm, Justice Ramcharan rejected his claim for financial losses, concluding Mr. Griffith failed to establish that former Chairman Seepersad’s action directly cost him his position as Commissioner of Police.