Ever since the Police Service Commission decided that it would sideline those police officers who have disciplinary matters before them, the government began to voice its displeasure at the Police Service Commission.
The life of the Commission comes to an end within weeks but the government could not wait for the life of the commission to expire. So President Irfaan Ali ventured down a path that makes him look superior to the constitution.
In fact, he is emerging as the Supreme Leader who can rule by edict.
When the list of promotions by the Police Service Commission was leaked, and the issue of the leak is questionable, there was a mad scramble by two officers who were bypassed to head to court.
Senior Superintendent Calvin Brutus and Senior Superintendent Faizal Karimbaksh mounted separate challenges.
The more serious of the challenges was filed by Brutus who contended that he was bypassed and that the list by the Police Service Commission should not be allowed. He obviously had the support of the Irfaan Ali government.
Before long, the government ordered that Head of Police Service Commission, Paul Slowe and retired Assistant Commissioner Clinton Conway be charged with fraud.
That was just the beginning. A number of other retired police officers were charged. No sooner had the charges been filed than Prime Minister Mark Phillips wrote to Slowe and Conway asking them to give reasons why they should not be removed from the Commission.
They replied and got a second letter asking them once more to give reasons for their continued service on the Police Service Commission.
Meanwhile they continued to defend their actions on the Commission before the courts. Chief Justice Roxane George deferred her ruling but not before she had said that she was not comfortable with the reliefs being sought by Superintendent Brutus.
That must have been the trigger because President Ali stepped in and suspended the entire Commission and promised a tribunal in keeping with the Constitution.
But even before this, President Ali was instrumental in getting the Commissioner of Police to reverse a decision on the Police Association, one of the bodies that nominate people to the Police Service Commission.
The Police Association had until next year but at the instigation of the political directorate Brutus initiated another Police Association which the Police Commissioner, some say under duress, legitimized.
The icing on the cake was the decision by the Chief Justice. She ruled that the action brought by Brutus had no merit. The way was clear for the Police Service Commission to release its list of promotions. And it did.
That list obviously flies in the face of what the government wanted so through Attorney General Anil Nandlall the government decided that it would not accept it.
Nandlall issued a statement that read in parts, “The Government of Guyana rejects as unlawful and illegal, a list of purported promotions of members of the Guyana Police Force by the Police Service Commission.
“The Police Service Commission has been suspended by a decision of His Excellency, the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali on the 16th day of June 2021.”
This purported list of promotions of members of the Guyana Police Force will be ignored.
“The said decision of the President can only be rescinded, revoked, set-aside or reversed by the President himself, or by a court of competent jurisdiction. No person, let alone, a constitutional commission, will be allowed to become judge, jury, and executioner in our constitutional democracy.”
Things then descended into the absurd. “If anyone had any doubts about the independence and rectitude of this grouping who constitute the Police Service Commission, those doubts should now be put to rest.” So said Nandlall.
Former President David Granger on Friday criticized the Government’s national security policy and performance over the past ten months, predicting that the country was being taken down a dangerous road.
Granger referred to a series of abuses – including the decision not to confirm the appointment of the Commissioner of Police; dissolving the Police Service Commission; discrediting respected, retired senior officers; the unseemly officers’ promotions case before the High Court; the controversial Police Association elections scandal and the recruitment of outsiders to form a PR Unit to manage information.
Lawyers for the Police Service Commission have since stated that President Ali’s purported suspension of the Police Service Commission was unlawful. There needed to be a tribunal to probe the case for their removal, the lawyers said.
There is no avenue for the setting up of a tribunal since there is no Judicial Service Commission, according to the lawyers
To complete what was started, it is now left for President Ali to make his promotions list. He would then have all-consuming powers to hire and fire as he pleases. It will be Kim Il Sung and his grandson, Kim Jong-Un all over again, this time in South America where despite coups and the like, such a scenario never occurred.
