OPPOSITION senator Wade Mark has said the Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Selection Process) Order 2021 does not simplify the process, but rather, “interferes” with it.

He made the statements in the Senate on Monday morning.

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith’s contract ends in August and he has said he will be reapplying for the position.

On June 17, the government announced that the process of selecting a commissioner and three deputies will be shortened by removing the mandate to advertise the post internationally.

The new constitutional provision also allows the commission to submit to the President a list of suitable candidates from among the ranks, including anyone on contract or who had been previously employed on contract, to be nominated to act as commissioner and/or deputy, pending the appointment of a substantive office-holder.

Mark referenced a newspaper article with the headline "Govt to simplify selection of top cop,"saying it should have actually read “Govt moves to interfere with the selection process of the top cop.”

He said the headline was misleading, and that the Opposition was “not alone in expressing its concern” about it.

“This is not the first time that a PNM government has attempted to adjust, amend, change, alter, the selection process as it relates to the commissioner of police as well as a deputy.

He said he was “amazed and shocked that an attorney general can go on public TV and also have printed in the newspapers that this order seeks to simplify the process, when we know upon closer examination, it is aimed at interfering.”

He also said the new process would put the President in an “unenviable position.”

He said he can’t bring himself to believe these changes were part of a “premeditated attempt by this government to choose their own commissioner,” but he can instead accept there may have been oversights.

“The day we allow any political party to have the right to select a commissioner, that is the end of our democracy. We will have a police state in Trinidad and Tobago.

“Get back to the drawing board, return our independence, allow the Police Service Commission (PSC) to hire a firm to assist it and allow the PSC to send to the President the highest-ranked and -graded officer who would have topped the order of merit list, and that name should then be sent to the House of Representatives to approve or to deny.

“We cannot put the President in unenviable position.”

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