George: Commission botched appointment of a CoP
ATTORNEY Martin George was scathing of many players in the controversy over whether Gary Griffith should be re-instated as acting Commissioner of Police (CoP), speaking to Newsday on Sunday. His ire was directed at Griffith, the Police Service Commission and retired Justice Stanley John. George is a former member of the commission.
Regarding Griffith, George questioned both his initial appointment as acting Commissioner and Griffith’s argument that he was now entitled to resume that office.
“If you are no longer commissioner and no longer acting commissioner, I think there are questions that ought to be raised.”
George queried Griffith’s claim of being under “suspension” from the post of acting CoP.
“Suspend from what? What are you suspended from? If you no longer hold the position, I can’t suspend you from it. It raises all kinds of questions.
“The PSC has definitely botched this tremendously
“Even the question of his acting appointment, I questioned that. I did not think they had any power to appoint him to an acting position when he has no rank or substantive position in TTPS to start with. “Their remit has been a disaster. And that’s to put it nicely”
George lamented Griffith using John’s recent letter to argue he should be reinstated. The letter said John’s investigation into the grant of firearm users licences did not entail any probe of Griffith personally.
“I think the wording of Justice John’s letter appears to be unfortunate. Maybe some greater consideration should have given before putting that in writing or before replying at all, and ending up in such a scenario where the very response ends up being weaponised against those who appointed you (John) and gave you your mandate.
“A more prudent course of action would have been to direct any questions to those (commissioners) who gave you your mandate and let them handle it and deal with it, instead of you going and committing yourself in writing on paper like that and allowing your response now to be formed and fashioned into a club to be used to beat on the heads of those who appointed you.
“It goes back to the ambit of the terms of reference of those who appointed Justice Stanley John.
He said that would have been a more prudent course of action for John.
BY: SEAN DOUGLAS
