FORMER commissioner of police (CoP) Gary Griffith on Wednesday insisted the order of merit list was still alive, despite the Government producing a new way to select a CoP.
He was speaking in an online interview called Gloves Off with fellow guest Vernon de Lima and host, political activist, Philip Edward Alexander on Tuesday.
The Government has vowed to soon bring to the House of Representatives, Legal Notice 277 of 2021 to replace Legal Notice 183 of 2021 and Legal Notice 103 of 2009 which were recently deemed invalid by Justice Nadia Kangaloo.
Saying he had consistently topped the field of candidates in assessment, Griffith urged MPs be allowed a conscience vote to choose a CoP saying they would support him if allowed to vote freely.
However, Griffith added that if government MPs were to vote in different ways, that would signal the start of this Government's collapse.
He said he had saved the country millions of dollars in legal damages by refusing to act against people at a party at upscale Bayshore whom he said the law forbade him to pursue onto private property, but this had upset a senior official who had then allegedly complained to the Police Service Commission (PSC.)
Griffith said the PSC then broke the law by suspending him, pending a probe into firearm user licence (FUL) issuance.
He alleged "deliberate political interference" to not have the merit list sent to Parliament, while saying Senior Counsel Martin Daley had said the list still remained valid.
Griffith said despite a new Cabinet note being drafted to supposedly scrap that merit list, the list must still be sent to Parliament by the new PSC led by Retired Justice Judith Jones.
He argued for the validity of the merit list by saying candidates had justifiable expectations in having undergone so many processes to face selection.
However, he alleged the results where he had topped the field of candidates had been disliked in certain quarters, with efforts made to scrap them, amid a constant moving of the goalposts of the selection process.
Asked if the country now has a CoP, Griffith said no, and lamented this post-holder was no mere figurehead but was needed for duties such as suspending errant police officers. He lamented a certain dismantling of institutions occurring within the police service since his exit from the office of CoP.
Griffith alleged a "massive orchestrated campaign" of lies to try to demonise and discredit him, but said it had backfired on those perpetrating it.
Regarding an audit into the issuance of FULs, he asked why such a focus on legal firearms – one of which had recently saved a bar owner from bandits – when hundreds of people were being killed by illegal firearms.
Griffith said he had established a FUL card which contained a microchip, but this was scrapped when he left the CoP position thereby allowing certain officers to go back to doing things as done previously.
The post Griffith: In a free vote, MPs would choose me as CoP again appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
