Is the PSC a rubber stamp?

Tobago

Justice Judith Jones -

THE VIEWS expressed by retired Justice Judith Jones in her last annual report as chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) are incredible.

According to Justice Jones, the PSC has no power to probe anyone or anything. Confidentiality provisions prohibit accessing third-party intel.

Top cops are assessed not based on independent checks or verified information, but, rather, against data measured and standards set by the police service itself.

“The commission is not vested with investigative powers,” she said.

Yet if that is the case, what has the PSC been doing all these years?

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For decades, the body has been engaged in time-consuming recruitment processes for the post of commissioner of police. It has painstakingly assessed the performance of top cops.

Its own membership has been subject to open parliamentary scrutiny in which factual dossiers are prepared for use by MPs.

Are we to assume that, throughout all of this, the PSC itself has not been acting on full information?

Under the Constitution, the PSC, which is a body analogous to the independent service commissions set up to temper political or executive power, is supposed to perform crucial functions.

It is meant to shortlist and appoint top cops, handle promotions and disciplinary matters, monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of police top brass, prepare performance appraisals and hear appeals.

How is it to do any of this if it cannot ascertain facts? If it cannot ascertain facts, is the PSC a mere rubber stamp? Whose?

While we agree that one should not have to read between the lines of any legislation relating to a body as important and sensitive as this one, we cannot support the conclusion Justice Jones has arrived at.

The law may well have omitted specific mention of a power to investigate. But only because that power is implicit.

Former PSC member Courtney Mc Nish is completely correct when he stated in an interview with this newspaper on November 17 that the body can clearly commission probes pursuant to its functions.

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The issue, he said, is not the power to investigate, but the lack of resources to do so.

Meanwhile, if the former chairman’s contention that a police service commission cannot look beyond the key performance indicators set by the police to appraise top-cop performance is correct, that would defeat the entire purpose of the PSC itself, which is to be a check on the police, not its appendage.

Indeed, Justice Jones’s position is contradicted by CoP Erla Harewood-Christopher’s statement earlier this year before a parliamentary committee, when the commissioner said, “We are given targets by the PSC.”

This suggests the PSC calls some of the shots, as it properly should.