3 Down, How Many More to Go: The 2006 Process Further Exposed

On Friday July 20, in a special sitting of the House of Representatives, the 3rd Notice of Nomination for the office of Police Commissioner, the 7-year Acting Commissioner was rejected by the Government.
Inevitably, the PM came with reason number 3 for rejecting Williams and declaration #2 that the “process needs to be abolished”.
Rejection of Williams
In the first 2 nominations, the PM and his majority in the House creatively rejected them with:

1. The process is flawed, cumbersome, convoluted, expensive and unreliable, then
2. The ‘deal-breaker’ was nomination of persons who did not apply for the post.

Well, Williams DID apply for the post, and not for the first time. He also has been on a string of acting appointments and functioning in the position spanning three administrations.
Coming to nominee #3, there was great anticipation about what the Government was coming with this time to reject a man who has been acting in the position for 7 years.
He didn’t apply for the post was out.
Ten years ago, the then PM’s “position then was Williams wasn’t ready for the responsibility of the post”, this PM reminded us.
In 2018, “Government would not accept this notification, as we expect to respond in a way that will bring about some element of change and after seven years we don’t believe that just a confirmation - of not the incumbent, but the holder of an acting position - will change it.”, he went on.
So, with a promise that Cabinet will provide Williams with a pension that is personal to him, this PNM administration has declared Williams not up to the requirement of “intervention of change” – not up to the job.
So, round 3 of the nomination saga produces a ‘performance appraisal’, of sorts, of a failed candidate. And, after years of excuses for the demise of the management of the Police Service allegedly because the CoP was ‘only Acting’, he is put out to pasture as unfit.
The Process Must Be Abolished
Having rejected nominee #3, the Opposition’s feeble ‘yeah’ vote irrelevant anyway, the PM return to “de process”.
With nomination #1, the PM denounced the process in all manner and form. He conveniently forgot to remind us that he was one of the Parliamentarians who created this convoluted, unworkable process in 2006 when they all amended the Constitution.
They gave themselves the power to ‘decide’ the composition of the Police Service Commission (PolSC) with veto power over the nominees of the President and more veto power over the Commission’s nominees for Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner.
In 2015, this PM and his majority in Parliament produced Legal Notice 218 of 2015 reshaping the ‘process’ they created in 2006 (on behalf of the President).
So, the PNM in 2006 and 2015 had 2 bites of the cherry and the recruitment process remains a mess and ‘must be abolished’ as the PM declared on Friday.
In fact, by giving the powers the PolSC previously exercised over the entire Police Service to the Commissioner (over 7,000 officers), the Parliamentarians completely messed up the entire management of the Police Service.
Just check how many Judicial Review cases there have been against the Commissioner compared to how many there were against the Commission prior to 2006.,
Now, this PM who voted for the process in 2006 and 2015 says it must be abolished.
Abolishing it would mean, going back to amend the 2006 Constitution amendments and the details of the process in the Legal Notices 218 and 219 of 2015, and a special majority will be required for the Constitutional amendments.
After the wholly unnecessary Special Select Committee to conduct quasi-judicial review of the PolSC’s recruitment process, the Government declared it was going to change the process. Minister Hinds even went on radio to say they would include publishing the applicants’ photos in the newspapers and invite public comment on each of them.
But, the PNM couldn’t do it alone. So, they back-tracked on that and accepted the Order of Merit List ‘as the Law’, as the PM is fond of calling it.
Now, while declaring the need for its abolition, the PM hints that they may yet not reject one of the nominees on the Merit list. Of course, if they do that, they will claim its because “We require an intervention of change to give ourselves a chance to get the upper hand” (against the criminals) as the PM put it on Friday.
So, the process must go, but, we may still appoint a Commissioner under this flawed, unreliable, cumbersome, convoluted and expensive process, even if it’s just “to avoid legal challenges” which the PM said his Government will avoid. More likely, it will be because that is their preferred nominee.
This whole mess was created by unanimous vote of all Parliamentarians. But, they refuse to admit that they are really responsible for the state of the Police Service management by those decisions in 2006.
Let’s see where Nomination Notices #4, 5, 6, etc take us.

Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society
July 21, 2018