AS of midnight, the country will, for the first time since Independence, be without a commissioner of police at the helm of the police service.

This is because the acting appointment of deputy Commissioner McDonald Jacob comes to an end on Friday, and the acting appointment of former commissioner Gary Griffith by the Police Service Commission (PSC) from August 18 was deemed unlawful hours before.

In a ruling on Thursday, Justice Nadia Kangaloo voided Griffith’s appointment as acting top cop.

She also held the two legal notices which gave effect to both men’s acting appointments were also unlawful and void.

The situation can put the police service in a tailspin as there must be a top cop to sign off on the provision of goods and services to keep the organisation running.

Legal Notice 103 of 2009 gave the PSC the power to appoint a deputy commissioner to act as commissioner while Legal Notice 183 of 2021 allowed for someone who was on contract, or whose contract ended, to be appointed.

However, the judge held before any acting appointment can be made the process set out by section 123 of the Constitution must be followed by the PSC by sending a list of nominees to the President to be sent to the Parliament for approval.

She said it was more likely than not that the framers of the Constitution envisaged that any appointment to the most senior office of the police service should be subjected to the healthy process of parliamentary debate.

“On a true construction, the procedure under section 123 of the Constitution for appointment for commissioner and deputy applies to both (acting and substantive) appointments.”

Kangaloo was ruling on an interpretation claim by social activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj who was successful in getting the court to declare that Griffith’s appointment to act as commissioner was illegal and unconstitutional as it did not follow the procedure set out by the Constitution for such appointments.

Griffith was on leave as acting commissioner and had challenged the PSC’s decision to suspend him on September 17. However, with the court’s ruling that his short stint as acting commissioner was unlawful, not only does his lawsuit fall by the wayside but he will not return to the helm of the police service.

And, with Jacob’s equally short stint as acting top cop expiring by midnight, the police service will remain without a leader because there is no PSC to nominate anyone for the position.

Kangaloo said she left those issues “up to the powers that be.”

[caption id="attachment_919006" align="alignnone" width="461"] Justice Nadia Kangaloo. -[/caption]

The previous PSC which made the now controversial appointments collapsed last month with the resignations of its three members and its chairman, Bliss Seepersad.

Two new nominees – retired judge Judith Jones and management consultant Maxine Attong – have been forwarded by President Paula-Mae Weekes to the Parliament for approval, but it is not cert