Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Firearms Ap­peal Board has been or­dered to re­con­sid­er a le­gal chal­lenge over the re­fusal of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to grant a man a Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL).

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered on Thurs­day, High Court Judge Joan Charles up­held the man’s claim against the board, al­though his iden­ti­ty was with­held due to per­son­al safe­ty con­cerns.

The ap­pli­cant, a se­nior em­ploy­ee in the tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions de­part­ment of a ma­jor telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, first ap­plied for the li­cence in 2017.

In sup­port of his ap­pli­ca­tion, he cit­ed sev­er­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, in­clud­ing the 2001 mur­der of his fa­ther in To­ba­go and an un­solved at­tempt­ed kid­nap­ping in­volv­ing his wife in 2008. He al­so said his job re­quires him to trav­el na­tion­wide, in­clud­ing to high-risk ar­eas, and that he col­lects rental in­come from an apart­ment build­ing.

He fur­ther point­ed to an in­ci­dent in which se­cu­ri­ty guards at his work­place in­ter­cept­ed an in­di­vid­ual tak­ing pho­tographs of his ve­hi­cle.

In re­fus­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion in May 2021, then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said he was not sat­is­fied that the ap­pli­cant had demon­strat­ed a good rea­son to pos­sess a firearm for per­son­al and fam­i­ly pro­tec­tion. He al­so found that the man had failed to pro­vide ev­i­dence of any im­mi­nent threat to his life or that of his fam­i­ly.

The man, through his at­tor­neys Kiel Tak­lals­ingh and Kristy Mo­han, ap­pealed the de­ci­sion to the Firearms Ap­peal Board.

The board dis­missed the ap­peal, find­ing that the ap­pli­cant faced no di­rect threat aris­ing from his fa­ther’s mur­der. It al­so sug­gest­ed that his wife may have been a more ap­pro­pri­ate ap­pli­cant, giv­en that the at­tempt­ed kid­nap­ping was per­son­al to her.

Re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing pho­tographs of his ve­hi­cle, the board not­ed that no re­port had been made to the po­lice. It al­so sug­gest­ed that rental pay­ments could be con­duct­ed via elec­tron­ic bank­ing to min­imise risk.

In her rul­ing, Jus­tice Charles found that the board had ap­plied the wrong le­gal test by fo­cus­ing on whether the ap­pli­cant faced an im­mi­nent threat, rather than whether he had demon­strat­ed “good rea­son” to be grant­ed a li­cence, as re­quired un­der Sec­tion 17(4) of the Firearms Act.

“This is not the test out­lined in Sec­tion 17(4) of the Firearms Act,” she stat­ed, find­ing that the board’s de­ci­sion was af­fect­ed by an er­ror of law.

How­ev­er, the judge stopped short of find­ing the de­ci­sion ir­ra­tional.

“On the facts of the case, I do not con­sid­er that the Board’s rea­sons were ir­ra­tional or un­rea­son­able in the sense of be­ing per­verse or ar­bi­trary,” she said.

Jus­tice Charles al­so re­ject­ed the ap­pli­cant’s claim that the process breached the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice, not­ing that he had been giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard.

“The fact that the Board mis­di­rect­ed it­self and erred in law by ap­ply­ing the wrong test in its de­ci­sion can­not, with­out more, amount to un­fair­ness and a breach of the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice,” she said.

The judge or­dered that the board re­con­vene with­in 30 days to re­con­sid­er the ap­peal in ac­cor­dance with her rul­ing.

The Firearms Ap­peal Board was rep­re­sent­ed by Gre­go­ry Delzin, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul and Lianne Thomas, while at­tor­ney Joan­na Richards al­so ap­peared for the ap­pli­cant.