PCA: Co-operation with Griffith going well

Police Complaints Authority (PCA) director David West has said the police and the PCA are working on a memorandum of understanding which does not require legislative intervention. “We are almost complete with it. Once it is complete will see how it works.”

West, speaking to Newsday in a phone interview, said the memorandum should reduce the need for legislative intervention. He also said with the appointment of Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, the relationship between the police and the PCA has improved. “The co-operation between the TTPS and the PCA is working well.”

During the meeting of the Special Select Committee on the Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2019 yesterday, DPP Roger Gaspard said legislation governing the PCA needed amending. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, who spoke with Newsday after the meeting, said the PCA amendments requested have been effectively managed by memoranda of understanding between the police and the PCA.

“The relationship between Mr David West and Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith is an excellent one, and you know you are not hearing complaints from the PCA because now there is a confluence of operation.”

He added: “You don’t need law for everything. You can have access and compromise and understanding and arrangements.” He said all other countries around the world operate without law but with joint enterprise and understanding. “That’s when you get the right office-holder operating in the right context.”Government has looked at certain tweaks, he said, and some have been implemented via standing procedures and arrangements. He also said the need for legislation to strengthen the PCA is tied up in the issues of three-fifths support majority. “And I am not confident that this Opposition has any goodwill in its mind as to what is required or not.”

Asked if the PCA was still calling for legislative amendments, West said there are a few slight amendments to be made which would “clean up the act.”

They were: widen the definition of serious police misconduct to include committing of a disciplinary offence under the municipal police service regulations; deem the authority constituted with one member for no more than three months after the death, resignation or revocation of office of a member, as investigations stop without the second member (director or deputy director); have the PCA fall under an interested party under the Coroner’s Act; have the Evidence Act include the PCA as a law enforcement agency and therefore allow the PCA to take witness statements and statements of defaulters via audio/visual equipment; and make the PCA a law-enforcement agency under the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Act to allow the FIU director to forward information on any suspicious activity by a police officer for the PCA to investigate.