‘Absurd’ move to retroactively appoint Williams – PdP

The Opposition People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) has described Government’s muddled move to appoint a second Deputy Commissioner of Police without the required legislation as an “absurdity”.

Spokesperson on law and governance Maria Phillips today insisted that the PdP was in full support of fellow party member Senator Caswell Franklyn, who was responsible for bringing to light the illegitimacy of the appointment of Oral Williams.

Phillips maintained that Williams could not be legally appointed as Deputy Commissioner of Police without the matter being aired in Parliament, which is yet to happen.

She contended that Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s argument of implied repeal was not lawful.

Phillips said: “We as the PdP want to bring to the attention of the public the most recent statements of the Prime Minister and what we have deemed as a bungled delivery of a doctrine of implied repeal of legislation in an effort to justify the recent appointment of another Deputy Commissioner of Police.

“Even though the Prime Minister has stated that the orders were signed, there is no evidence even by reviews of the order papers in the Barbados Parliament that this legislation was laid before the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament and that the orders were in fact affirmed by a resolution in each house for them to be passed.

“The absurdity of this situation is that the substantive post does not legitimately exist and furthermore we have a situation in which Barbadian taxpayers have had the burden of paying for the remuneration of the proposed officeholder for a period of over one year.”

Phillips said it was interesting to note that while Attorney General Dale Marshall admitted an error had been made in appointing Williams before making the necessary changes to the legislation and had apologized, the Prime Minister had said otherwise.

She also said it was mindboggling that Williams was put in charge of human resources, which were also the responsibilities of an Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Senator Franklyn charged that Government was setting the law and breaking it at the same time.

He said: “You cannot be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker at the same time and the Government is refusing to follow the law. This is lawlessness. Government has to behave better and set an example.

“When the people go before the magistrate and are sent to jail that’s because they broke the law. There is no punishment for these [government] breaking the laws of Barbados too?” randybennett@barbadostoday.bb