Gary Griffith wins lawsuit against former PolSC chairman

Derek Achong

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has won his law­suit against for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad over her de­ci­sion to with­draw a mer­it list when he was seek­ing reap­point­ment in 2021.

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered on Wednes­day morn­ing, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran up­held Grif­fith’s claim of mis­fea­sance in pub­lic of­fice against Seep­er­sad.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled that the com­mis­sion had the au­thor­i­ty to with­draw the mer­it list be­fore it was sub­mit­ted to the Pres­i­dent for par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

How­ev­er, he found that Seep­er­sad act­ed un­law­ful­ly when she uni­lat­er­al­ly made the de­ci­sion af­ter the list had been sub­mit­ted to for­mer Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes on Au­gust 11, 2021.

The judge found that the ap­proval of the oth­er mem­bers of the com­mis­sion at the time would have been re­quired to rat­i­fy the de­ci­sion.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran award­ed Grif­fith $250,000 in com­pen­sa­tion, rul­ing that he would have suf­fered rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age as a re­sult of the de­ci­sion.

How­ev­er, he re­ject­ed Grif­fith’s claim for com­pen­sa­tion for loss of op­por­tu­ni­ty, find­ing that there was no guar­an­tee Par­lia­ment would have ap­proved his rec­om­mend­ed reap­point­ment had the mer­it list not been with­drawn.

Grif­fith was rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, Nicholas Per­sad and Taruna Man­groo.

Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, and Ravi Heffes-Doon rep­re­sent­ed Seep­er­sad.