Businessman wins Privy Council case against CoP

AN 85-YEAR-OLD gas station manager, whose firearm licence was revoked by the Commissioner of Police in 1998, has won his judicial review case in the British Privy Council. Yesterday, the Law Lords ruled in favour of Barl Naraynsingh, of Edinburgh Gardens, Chaguanas, who had the firearm licence from 1961 until it was revoked by the then Commissioner Hilton Guy on December 28, 1998. The Privy Council comprising Lords Nicholls, Hoffmann, Hope, Scott, and Brown, also ordered the Commissioner of Police to pay costs in the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Privy Council.

The Law Lords allowed the appeal brought by Naraynsingh, quashed the Commissioner’s decision to revoke the appellant’s licence, and granted Naraynsingh leave to apply to the judge for whatever relief he may still seek. According to Lord Brown, the essential basis of the Commis-sioner’s decision was that during the execution of a civil debt at Naraynsingh’s home on March 7, 1996, a second firearm (unlicensed) was allegedly found on the premises.

By judicial review proceedings commenced on March 17, 1999, when Naraynsingh challenged the Commissioner’s decision on various grounds including in particular, that it was reached unfairly and without any sufficient investigation having been made into the circumstances of the alleged finding of the second firearm, an allegation strenuously denied by the appellant. The challenge failed before Justice Joseph Tam on March 27, 2000 and again on appeal before the Court of Appeal comprising Justices Rolston Nelson, Anthony Lucky, and Wendell Kangaloo on November 14, 2002.