A for­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), a for­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and a se­nior of­fi­cer are all adamant that changes are nec­es­sary to safe­guard the in­tegri­ty of the in­de­pen­dent body.

They have al­so tak­en is­sue with the ap­point­ment of an act­ing com­mis­sion­er or deputy com­mis­sion­er be­ing tak­en to Par­lia­ment.

For­mer PolSc mem­ber and Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin had strong words when ques­tioned about whether or not the PolSC should sole­ly be re­spon­si­ble for ap­point­ing an act­ing com­mis­sion­er or deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pas­tor Dot­tin main­tained that the process must be free from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

“That is a struc­ture that is a dis­as­ter and it is a cat­a­lyst for politi­cis­ing the po­lice force and for mak­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­ers ob­lig­at­ed to the prime min­is­ter. Be­cause if the prime min­is­ter like hell don’t want you, that is the end of you and since we have a lot of spine­less par­lia­men­tar­i­ans they will not vote, sup­port­ing the prime min­is­ter for what­ev­er rea­son, self­less agen­da, crony­ism or what­ev­er, that is the end of you,” Dot­tin said.

On Wednes­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Ju­nior Ben­jamin was ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment as act­ing com­mis­sion­er.

The move came af­ter top cop Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was re­cent­ly ar­rest­ed and re­leased in con­nec­tion with the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles which end­ed up in the hands of agents of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

On Wednes­day, High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand dis­missed Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion which had sought to stop the Par­lia­ment from ap­prov­ing Ben­jamin as act­ing com­mis­sion­er, af­ter hear­ing lengthy sub­mis­sions from her lawyers and those for the PolSC. How­ev­er, it was not a to­tal de­feat for Hare­wood-Christo­pher, as Jus­tice Sieuc­hand grant­ed her leave to pur­sue her sub­stan­tive case chal­leng­ing her sus­pen­sion by the PolSC.

At present, if a va­can­cy aris­es in the hi­er­ar­chy of the TTPS, the Prime Min­is­ter, af­ter con­sult­ing with the Pres­i­dent, may ad­vise on the ap­point­ment of an act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er. The role of the PolSC is to make rec­om­men­da­tions based on a can­di­date’s suit­abil­i­ty.

Yes­ter­day, Dot­tin had a stern warn­ing for the new­ly in­stalled Ben­jamin.

“My mes­sage to this gen­tle­man is do not roast his in­tegri­ty on the al­tar of im­moral­i­ty. Re­sist po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and do your best to re­store the im­age and trust of the Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Mean­while, for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams de­scribed the process of se­lect­ing a com­mis­sion­er or act­ing com­mis­sion­er as cum­ber­some and un­nec­es­sary.

“Any good think­ing cit­i­zen would recog­nise that it makes ab­solute­ly no sense for the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er or deputy com­mis­sion­er to be ex­posed to that chal­lenge. Let’s say that if the com­mis­sion­er has to trav­el for a con­fer­ence for five days, he could on­ly trav­el if it goes to par­lia­ment and par­lia­ment sits, that is just wrong.”

Speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, an­oth­er for­mer se­nior of­fi­cer who sat on the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive, ar­gued that the process al­so has the po­ten­tial to tar­nish the rep­u­ta­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers and to un­der­mine the ser­vice.

“Un­der the cloak of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, they go and say all kinds of things about po­lice of­fi­cers and dam­age their rep­u­ta­tion, which is not good at all for the po­lice of­fi­cers and that is why they are re­luc­tant now to go for­ward and sub­mit their names for those po­si­tions. There are of­fi­cers who are ca­pa­ble of the job but con­cerned about the cloud that can hang over them.”