CHAGUANAS gun dealer Towfeek Ali and five others want the High Court to review a new policy for the renewals of firearm user’s licences (FULs).
On April 19, attorneys for Ali, Hassan Ali, Azad Ali, Rajiv Maharaj, Navindra Ramjattan and Anita Latchman filed an application for judicial review.
It has been assigned to Justice Ricky Rahim.
The six are seeking the court’s permission to challenge the decision of the Commissioner of Police to deem invalid FULs which were not renewed during the period 2004-2024.
The leave application said this decision has potentially exposed thousands of FUL holders to criminal prosecution.
It also complains that the new system, announced in January, was impossible and difficult to comply with.
At the start of the year, the CoP announced that all FUL holders had to renew their permits, including those who were issued FULs before 2004, when the Firearms Act was amended. Since the start of the year, attorney Nyree Alfonso, a FUL holder and Ali’s wife – he is managing director of Firearms Training Institute and she is a director – has exchanged sometimes heated correspondence with the commissioner’s legal team on the issue.
The leave application says in February, a letter from the CoP conveyed that FUL holders were in “deliberate non-compliance with the renewal regime.” The application said in 2004, Parliament introduced a renewal process for FUL holders to renew their licences every three years,
However, it noted there had been no guidance on how this was to be done. The application further contended that for the first time, the CoP put forward the position that those who had failed to renew their FULs since 2004 no longer held valid licences.
“The effect of this finding is that the Firearms Act makes it a criminal offence to possess firearms without a valid licence and the intended defendant’s position would make thousands of persons liable to criminal prosecution including security guards assigned to protect government buildings/assets as well as private property.”
The application also said if those FULs have been deemed invalid since 2007, then holders of licences before 2004, and those who received permits before 2021, would now need to make fresh applications, since they cannot renew something that has become invalid.
As part of the application, the six are seeking interim declarations that those FULs in existence before January 2024 which were not previously renewed are still valid until the court determines the matter.
It also seeks to prevent the CoP from taking steps to initiate criminal prosecution against FUL holders or seize their licences or firearms until the matter is resolved.
In her previous correspondence, Alfonso contended that Section 17(6) of the Firearms (Amendment) Act states that FULs granted before the passage of the legislation in 2004 will remain valid unless terminated or revoked.
Alfonso also represents Ali and the others, along with Anand Beharrylal, KC, Kiel Taklalsingh and Asif Hosein-Shah.
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