Minister Gajraj’s ‘order’
Editorial
Stabroek News
May 4, 2003
Amid all the weird happenings in this dear land of ours, we now have the strange tale of Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe. In a report carried in our edition of April 25, it was stated that the controversy currently swirling around the Commander of ‘B’ Division had its genesis in an incident where a 24 year-old man shot himself in his father’s house at Rosignol on Sunday, March 30. We reported a police source as saying that an investigation had been launched in an attempt to establish whether the man had been shot accidentally while cleaning his weapon, or whether he had inflicted the wound on himself on account of a domestic quarrel.
The source went on to say that the weapon in question was subsequently turned over to the police, although this newspaper was unable to reconcile the conflicting accounts of exactly when that happened. Be that as it may, on the day following the incident, we were told that an unidentified official from the Ministry of Home Affairs had called the Berbice police asking about the status of the investigation, and suggesting that the shooting had been an accident. The official was informed that in order to establish that fact, an investigation had to be conducted and the weapon handed over to police for ballistics tests.
It was on Tuesday, April 1, that investigating ranks discovered that not just the man involved in the shooting but his father as well was a licensed firearm holder, which necessitated testing his weapon too. It was duly handed over without difficulty. However, some time thereafter, Police Commissioner (ag) Floyd McDonald was alleged to have indicated that the gun belonging to the father should be returned. He was then informed that it was undergoing ballistics tests and could not be handed back until those investigations were complete.
Two days later, tests concluded that the father’s weapon had not been used in the shooting, and the owner went to Blairmont Police Station to collect it. He had been advised to pick it up there by no less a person than the Commissioner himself, it seems, who had issued orders that it be returned. However, when the father presented himself at the station, the gun was not there.
It is at this point that Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj enters the story. A source told Stabroek News that on Friday, April 4, the Minister called to enquire about the status of the investigation, and is alleged to have asked what time he could send to collect the gun. He was advised that investigations were still ongoing, but not satisfied with that, he ordered that the weapon be returned.
The senior officer with whom he is reported to have had this conversation, was not named at this point in our initial story, but in our follow-up report of May 1, it becomes clear that it was in fact Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe. According to the source, Mr Slowe refused to return the weapon and told the Minister that he was not in a position to give him orders, and that this order was unlawful.
The following day, the Commissioner had his say once again, and tried to convince the Commander that the gun should be returned to the man’s father; he also is alleged to have suggested that Mr Slowe apologize to Minister Gajraj for refusing an order. It appears that the Assistant Commissioner declined to do this.
By this time, we reported, the police chief had dispatched an instruction in writing to Mr Slowe, requiring that the weapon be handed back. That instruction was eventually complied with, although Commander Slowe maintained at the time that as a result, the investigation had been compromised.
That was not, however, the end of the affair. On Monday, April 7, Commander Slowe presented himself in the Commissioner’s office in Georgetown, where the police chief again is alleged to have suggested that he apologize to Minister Gajraj. Two days later, he found himself on the grander carpet in the Office of the President. The Head of State, we were told, also asked him to apologize to the Minister, which he undertook to do once he had been informed in writing of exactly what infraction he had committed. The latest development is that Assistant Commissioner Slowe has now been relieved of his command, and has been asked to report to the Commissioner of Police for reassignment.
Well none of this reflects too well on the politicians, and possibly not too well on Commissioner McDonald either. The first question that has to be considered, is the propriety of Assistant Commissioner Slowe’s refusal to hand back the father’s weapon once ballistics tests had cleared it, and after the Commissioner of Police (ag) had required (orally) that he do so. (He has a prima facie case for not doing so prior to the tests.) This is obviously an internal police issue, although we have been told that ‘B’ Division had no record of the gun licence for the weapon, which may have been one of the things which inhibited the Assistant Commissioner from handing it over. A Ministry of Home Affairs official did tell Stabroek News that it is quite possible that the information relating to the licence had not yet been transmitted to Berbice from head office.
Well if that is indeed so, then couldn’t a copy of the licence have been sent to the Berbice headquarters from Georgetown to satisfy Mr Slowe’s understandable scruples on the matter? Doesn’t the police force have a fax machine at its disposal, for example? Surely we are not supposed to believe that Eve Leary is not in written communication with its far-flung outposts in the Ancient County?
And if it was indeed the case that according to the rules of police procedure, Assistant Commissioner Slowe refused to carry out a legitimate order issuing from a superior officer, then that is a disciplinary matter, for which the provisions of the Police (Discipline) Act (Cap 17:01) and the constitution, cater. On the basis of evidence currently available in the public domain, however, it does not appear as if the rules have been followed.
What is clearly illegitimate, was the Commissioner’s request for Assistant Commissioner Slowe to apologize to Minister Gajraj for refusing to carry out his “order” to return the weapon in dispute. Quite simply, in the first instance the Home Affairs Minister has no authority to issue any order to an Assistant Commissioner; he has to relate to the police force through the Commissioner of Police alone. By extension, therefore, neither he nor Mr McDonald can insist that Mr Slowe give an apology for not doing that which under the law he should not have being doing in any case.
If that were not bad enough, the President of Guyana then has to insinuate himself into the sequence of events, and compound the problem by allegedly requiring that Commander Slowe apologize for not carrying out Mr Gajraj’s illegal “order.” Quite aside from the fact that a head of state should never intervene in matters at this level - he should leave it to others - what on earth is he doing backing a Minister who to all appearances is attempting to exert pressure in a way which the law does not allow?
There is the Government - and President Jagdeo himself, no less - at pains to assure the public that there is no interference by the political directorate in those bodies whose operations are governed by the law of the land, and there he is doing the exact opposite of what he claims. As it is, therefore, he has undermined his own credibility as well as that of his government, and at the very least has displayed a certain lack of familiarity with the provisions of the very constitution which he has sworn to uphold.
In the meantime, the Minister is still ensconced comfortably in his Ministry, while Assistant Commissioner Slowe has been cast adrift on the sea of uncertainty. May we respectfully suggest, that before the President and his Home Affairs Minister commit any more bloopers in this matter, they consult with the Attorney General, who will advise them as to what the procedures are in respect of disciplinary matters in the police force, and which powers they do not have in relation to the GPF. And it really couldn’t do any harm either, if Commissioner McDonald were to dust off his copy of the constitution as well as Cap 17:01 to refresh his memory on any provisions which might be applicable before there is any decision to reassign - let alone second - Assistant Commissioner Slowe.
