Rowley ordered to appear in court in Griffith’s FUL report challenge

Black Immigrant Daily News

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FIle photo: Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

THE Prime Minister and several of his ministers are expected to appear before a High Court judge next month as he considers whether to grant an injunction to former police commissioner Gary Griffith to prevent the publication of the controversial Firearm User’s Licence (FUL) audit report in Parliament.

The order for Dr Rowley, former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi, ministers Fitzgerald Hinds, Colm Imbert, Stuart Young, and Marvin Gonzales to appear in court was made by Justice Devindra Rampersad on Friday. Griffith has sued the PM and his ministers, as well as retired police officers Wellington Virgil, Raymond Craig, and Lennard Charles – who formed part of the audit team.

Rampersad also granted Griffith permission to pursue his judicial review claim against the nine for setting up the audit committee to investigate the firearms unit of the police and depriving him of natural justice while also considering laying the report in Parliament.

Rowley and the others will have to appear before the judge on November 9, when he will consider whether to grant the injunction Griffith has asked for.

The former top cop also wants the court to order the PM and his ministers to disclose the names of the members of the audit committee and grant declarations that the decision to commission the report infringed his rights and was illegal, unlawful and irrational, since they did not have the power to appoint the committee.

Griffith is also asking for the quashing of the report or any part of it that concerns him. The injunction he is asking for seeks to prevent the report from being published or laid in Parliament.

Griffith, who served as police commissioner from 2018-August 2021, is represented by Senior Counsel Avory Sinanan and Larry Lalla.

He said from his experience as a former national security minister he knows neither the Prime Minister nor the National Security Council had the authority to appoint anyone to investigate the operations of the police service, so he was concerned about the legality of the appointment of the audit committee.

He also says he is concerned that the contents of the report and the process used by the committee were irretrievably tainted by bad faith and illegality because the Prime Minister has no power to appoint such a committee, and because of statements Dr Rowley made after Griffith announced the launch of his political party and his decision to reapply to be top cop.

Griffith also fears publication of the report or any part of it would expose him to public ridicule and if laid in Parliament, would protect Rowley and the media by qualified or absolute privilege from defamation claims for damages.

The former top cop contends he was the target of the audit because of the timing of the appointment of the audit team. “…In my respectful view, the committee being appointed in November 2021 and I having left office of CoP in August 2021, the investigations of the committee were directly relevant to and necessarily involved the manner in which I would have exercised my discretion and discharged my functions under the Firearms Act during the time that I held the office of the CoP.”

Griffith said from November 2021, when the committee was purportedly appointed, to July 2022, he heard nothing about the committee until the Prime Minister revealed he was the “high-level” government official who met with the ex-chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) Bliss Seepersad at President’s House. That led to the August 2021 merit list for the post of CoP being withdrawn.

File photo: Former commissioner of police Gary Griffith.

Griffith said the information the Prime Minister admitted to giving Seepersad – which led to her not submitting the merit list to the President – was never revealed to him. He said it was only after he announced the formation of his National Transformation Alliance (NTA) party that the Prime Minister spoke of the audit report, saying it made for “disturbing reading.”

At the same media conference, Rowley said the executive summary would be laid in Parliament. but everything else would be sent to the PSC.

But Griffith said he was never presented with the report, nor did he have the privilege of seeing it, although it was leaked to the press, allegedly to tarnish his name.

His lawsuit also mentioned statements Rowley made about Griffith at a political meeting after the contents of the purported report were reported in the press.

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

He also said he wrote to the new chairman of the PSC, retired Justice Judith Jones, and the Office of the Attorney General on making public the audit report without giving him an opportunity to see it and respond to it.

The PSC, he said, assured him it would observe the principles of natural justice both on the contents of the report and the recruitment exercise for new top cop, while the AG’s office gave the impression that the Prime Minister still had control over the report.

Griffith said repeated requests for disclosure of the report have been refused.

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