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The House of Representatives meets tomorrow to decide on whether or not to accept the fourth nominee on the Merit List provided by the Police Service Commission through an official notification to the House sent by the President of the Republic for the position of Commissioner of Police.
This change to the Constitution in 2006 converted the non-public veto of the Prime Minister into an open debate in the House of Representatives with a vote on a nominee selected by a process controlled by the Police Service Commission and notified by the President.
This reform has forced secrecy to meet transparency and that has not been an easy transition. It forces those who have a majority of seats in the House of Representatives to vote to ensure that a nominee is either rejected or confirmed.
On page 41 of the report of the Special Select Committee that was appointed by the House of Representatives to inquire into the process by which the PSC arrived at its conclusions, the following is stated:
“Additionally, having regard to the observations and findings set out above, the Committee considers that in many respects the manner in which the entire process was conducted by the PSC was defective and unreliable and may expose the PSC to allegations of arbitrariness and lack of transparency.”
There is nothing that will prevent the House of Representatives from voting to confirm Gary Griffith as Commissioner of Police. The controversy will come from this conclusion of the Special Select Committee expressed on page 41 of the Report:
“The Committee recommends that the Order made pursuant to Section 123(2) of the Constitution should be subject to urgent review with the view to the establishment of well-defined guidelines for the selection of a CoP and DCoP.”
There is no doubt that Gary Griffith has the military training that may bring a different approach to policing in the current environment of Trinidad and Tobago. How his insertion into the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service at this time will be received by the rank and file officers is unknown. Back in 2010, Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski were inserted into the TTPS from overseas. The difference here is that they were also career police officers. In this instance, Griffith has a different background in his training which is that of a soldier and not a policeman.
All of these arguments have been made over the last week ever since the news broke that the Government was likely to support the nomination of Griffith, notwithstanding the ministerial statements about the process being a flawed one.
It is the issue of political judgment that must be understood. Gary Griffith himself was a parliamentarian having served as a Cabinet Minister during the period 2013-2015. His departure took place under very controversial circumstances. The Government will be mindful of the political challenges that may arise having regard to a matter that is currently before the courts in which he may be a potential witness and what his cross-examination under oath might be like.
The issue at the heart of this is whether the Government will suffer any negative fallout from adopting the view that the process that produced the nomination of Gary Griffith was flawed, but despite that, they have no objection to Gary Griffith, the individual, to serve as Commissioner of Police.
This conundrum is best captured by the Leader of Government Business, Camille Robinson-Regis, as follows:
“Madam Speaker, before moving the adjournment of the House, I must advise on a matter which concerns the business of the House. I am informed by the Clerk that a document has come to the Parliament regarding a notification for the appointment to the office of Commissioner of Police. Madam Speaker, you will recall that in this very House we have determined that the process of the Police Service Commission in this matter was lacking in transparency and that one can come to no other conclusion that the Commission did a job which cannot be explained and which was wholly unreliable and appeared to be flawed.
Consequently, Madam Speaker, any recommendations coming out of that flawed process cannot and will not be accepted. In the circumstances, Madam Speaker, as Leader of the House, I have instructed the Clerk that this matter will not be proceeded with. [Desk thumping].” (Hansard, House of Representatives, July 3, 2018, pp. 33-34).