Young tells police: Work with whoever is appointed

FORMER national security minister Gary Griffith’s status as a witness in a case against former attorney general Anand Ramlogan does not debar him from being appointed the next Commissioner of Police (CoP).

Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said so to reporters after attending the swearing-in of new Belmont East councillor Nicole Young at Port of Spain City Hall.

Leader of Government Business Camille Robinson-Regis yesterday said she received a notification from President Paula-Mae Weekes of the Police Service Commission (PSC)’s nomination of Griffith as CoP. She said the House will sit on Monday at 1.30 pm to debate the nomination.

Young said: “We are following the process of law, the Constitution and the particular order for the appointment of CoP.”

While Robinson-Regis previously said the selection process used by the PSC was flawed, Young said one needed to carefully examine what happened from the first meeting of the Special Select Committee (SSC), appointed to examine the process, to debate on the nominations of Deodat Dulalchan, Harold Phillip and Stephen Williams to clearly identify “what the issues and what the difficulties were with the process and procedure.”

In its report to the House in April, the SSC said it was concerned about the “direct involvement” of PSC members in the assessment of candidates. The SSC felt the process the PSC used to select nominees for CoP and DCP was “defective and unreliable.”

The committee felt this could expose the PSC to “allegations of arbitrariness and a lack of transparency.”

Young said, “It did not rule out the order of merit list.”

Saying the law is “very, very clear” about the legitimacy of the list, he said, “The procedure set out is that a name comes forward. It is up to the majority of Parliament to say yea or nay and to go through the list as has happened in the past.”

Asked if this meant any person who is still on the list can be chosen as CoP, Young replied, “Absolutely.”

On Griffith being involved in the witness-tampering case which Police Complaints Authority director David West brought against Ramlogan, Young said, “I don’t see that as precluding him at all.”

He added, “In fact, if it’s anything, it might be an endorsement on his character that he was fearless and ready to stand up for the truth at a particularly difficult time.”

Griffith and Ramlogan were fired in February 2015 by then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar after West made his complaint to the police against Ramlogan.

Griffith claimed he was pressured by his former Cabinet colleagues not to support West’s complaint. Persad-Bissessar also called for West to resign.

On the Police Social and Welfare Association saying it will not work with Griffith if he is appointed, Young said, “ I think it is wrong to take an attitude up front that they are not going to work with any particular person unless there is a very, very good reason.

“I think they are anticipating a lot if Mr Griffith is selected as the CoP.”

Young hoped as a citizen that the members of the Police Service “would do what is right for the country and work with who is decided as the next CoP.”

He urged reporters to “wait on Monday to see what Parliament decides.”

On Facebook, Griffith’s wife Nicole Dyer-Griffith posted the notice of the House’s sitting on Monday under the hashtag #captaintocommissioner?

Dyer-Griffith served as a government senator under the Persad-Bissessar administration.