EDITORIAL - A nullity from the beginning

We are well aware that the Honourable Attorney General, Mr Dale Marshall MP, QC, is not obliged to follow our advice, if he should even become aware of it. But we would counsel him at this stage to take a strategic step back from the ongoing public debate surrounding the purported appointment of Mr Oral Williams to the post of Deputy Commissioner of Police in the Royal Barbados Police Force. As should be by now notorious, the purported appointment was in contravention of the Police Act which provides for the existence of “a” Deputy Commissioner in the Force, and there is already someone in that position.

Having previously volunteered what we consider a rather flippant and supercilious response to the Opposition Senator who had publicly questioned the legality of the appointment, the AG sought last week to suggest that the matter was much ado about nothing, since Mr Williams had already been acting in the post that had been created since last May. But this merely served to compound the error since Mr Marshall never offered any explanation as to how a post that, as he now concedes, requires a legislative amendment to be lawfully created could have licitly been in existence for almost a year.

What makes the continued controversy even more regrettable is the potential harm that the AG’s vain attempt to justify the patent error is causing to the learned Mr Williams’s stellar reputation as a proficient law enforcement officer, earned in a distinguished career over the years. Already, there are whispers of partisan political considerations having favoured the appointment and even darker allegations as to the overarching motive for it.

Both of these considerations apart, we marvel also at the mechanics of the error. Appointment to a post created by statute usually entails an express reference in the instrument of appointment to the specific provision under which the appointment is made. This occurs with the appointment of chairpersons and members of the boards of statutory corporations and other state entities such as tribunals, commissions and authorities, with that of the Commissioner of Police and, perhaps, even that of the Attorney General.

In this context, we find it incredible that no one managed to spot the inconsistency (we put it no higher) in the further appointment of a Deputy Police Commissioner given the clear words of the relevant section of the Police Act, Cap 167, under which such an appointment must be made –

“The Force shall consist of a Commissioner, a Deputy Commissioner and such number of Assistant Commissioners, Superintendents, Inspectors, subordinate police officers and constables…”

And even if the individual responsible for drafting the instrument were minded to rely on the provision in the Interpretation Act, Cap.1, that “words in the singular include the plural, and words in the plural include the singular”, there should at least have been a question raised in his or her mind as to whether this was directly applicable, given the unlikelihood of a valid appointment of a second Commissioner and the express plural reference to “such number of other ranks”.

Leave it alone, we urge you, Mr Attorney. The collateral damage is too great.Continued defence will only lead us to question whether similar oversights might not have been made earlier in other contexts.

We note that yesterday the Honourable Prime Minister entered the debate, expressing support for her AG and asserting that the relevant section was impliedly repealed by a statutory instrument signed in February.

With all due respect to her argument, the lawfulness of that instrument was made subject to the positive affirmation of Parliament. Was the AG unaware of this?

Stay safe dear readers.