“My days of service are not over,” says former commissioner of police Gary Griffith, as High Court judge Nadia Kangaloo ruled that his acting appointment and that of DCP Mc Donald Jacob as acting commissioner of police were unconstitutional.
The judgement leaves the police service leaderless and, because of the dissolution of the Police Service Commission (PSC), no mechanism to appoint a substantive or acting commissioner.
In a five-minute statement shared on social media, Griffith, in Wembley in the United Kingdom, called the entire situation a “comedy of errors,” highlighting several missteps in the entire selection process.
“(It) included two merit lists for acting and substantive appointments being withheld, blatant false allegations made by the then PSC chairman that I was interfering with an investigation, the same chairman suspending me without authorisation or rationale, one specific official being so out of place to tell me not to report to work, and then we have a one-man minority report from a two-member committee with no law enforcement authority making false allegations without a shred of evidence, being leaked to a reporter and published.
“All of this to attack my character,” Griffith said.
“My issue with this entire process though is that it is all avoidable. There were certain institutions that held all the power. I could have been told at any stage that a different direction was preferred. There was no need to attempt to impugn my integrity, and this is the only aspect of this saga that I intend to fight to the end.”
Griffith said, based on the high court judgement the only thing that is needed to appoint an acting commissioner of police would be to hand over the completed merit list to the Parliament. The same could be done for the substantive role.
“This could be done tomorrow.”
Griffith also thanked the Prime Minister despite him saying that police could continue their duties without a police commissioner.
“While I understand this simply means that there is no real merit for some placed on the commissioner of police, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the honourable prime minister for the opportunity to be of service to the community as commissioner of police.”
Griffith said he would now wait for the situation to unfold.
“I did not force anyone to appoint me as acting commissioner. In fact, I never even applied for the post. I didn’t force anyone to appoint me as commissioner of police. As a country we have to accept the consequences of our actions. Time will tell the wisdom of this decision.”
Attempts to reach Jacob were unsuccessful.
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