OPPOSITION SENATOR Wade Mark on Thursday called on the police to interview President Paula-Mae Weekes, members of the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Cabinet.
The police service should get involved in this. They should investigate this. Speak with Her Excellency on this matter. This is criminal, Interview all of them. Our democracy is on trial,” Mark said at a media conference at the Opposition Leader’s office at Charles Street, Port of Spain.
He called on the Prime Minister to say which senior Cabinet minister was at the President’s House when the PSC met with the President to submit the merit list for the position of top cop and who presented information that prevented PSC chairman Bliss Seepersad from submitting the names.
“Who was it? Why did they go on that evening? Was it the Minister of Energy, Stuart Young? Was it the Minister of National Security, Fitzgerald Hinds? Was it the Prime Minister himself, Keith Christopher Rowley?”
Mark said the entire process of selecting a top cop was mired in political mischief, with the Government wanting to hand-pick a “stooge” to arrest their political opponents. He reminded those in attendance that the UNC opposed Seepersad’s appointment, saying it was against Section 126:2 of the Constitution, since at the time she wasa board member of the Chagauramas Development Authority (CDA).
Section 126:2 states: “A person who has held office or acted as a member of a service commission shall not, within a period of three years commencing with the date on which he last held or acted in such an office, be eligible for appointment to any public office.”
The Opposition has repeatedly called for the resignation of the PSC after it was sued by former police commissioner Gary Griffith, who insists that its letter suspending him is illegal.
Griffith was selected to act as Police Commissioner on August 17 until a substantive commissioner is appointed. From September 6-20 he went on leave and was due to return on September 21, but the PSC told him not to do so. In the interim itappointed DCP McDonald Jacob to act as Police Commissioner.
After an internal wrangle went unresolved, PSC member Courtney McNish resigned.
This came as the PSC was advised by Senior Counsel Rolston Nelson that the appointment of Griffith to act as Police Commissioner until a substantive office-holder was appointed was illegal.
The appointment of Jacob was also deemed illegal.
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