The offices of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Attorney General Anand Ramlogan have been discredited in the wake of the latest allegations against the Office of the AG, says former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj. Comparing allegations of corruption among state attorneys to the Section 34 and e-mailgate scandals, Maharaj yesterday took the PM to task over the lack of a proper investigation into the AG’s office after the concerns raised by former solicitor general Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell.
Speaking at a press conference at his San Fernando office yesterday, he said it was the first time in T&T that a solicitor general had complained to a prime minister about alleged improper and unlawful conduct. He said if his solicitor general had complained during his stint as AG, he would not have waited to resign from office.
“The serious question which arises is why the Prime Minister, in the face of these serious allegations of possible criminal conduct in the conduct and management of litigation on behalf of the State by the Ministry of the Attorney General, did not take action to investigate these serious allegations,” he asked, adding it seemed the PM was not interested in fighting corruption.
“The Prime Minister had the solicitor general’s letter in August, 2013, telling her that possible unlawful and corrupt conduct was happening since mid-2010, for almost four years.”
Withdrawal of briefs
Although the AG was previously reported as saying that the issues predated his appointment, Maharaj reminded that it was Ramlogan who, on taking office in 2010, withdrew the briefs of most state attorneys. Saying the attorneys were replaced by those acquainted with Ramlogan, he said it was the AG himself who retained the lawyers and who was responsible for the State’s legal affairs. Explaining the AG’s possible role in the current fiasco, he said: “It is recognised that in law, context is important.
“The Attorney General is the person who makes the decision to retain lawyers. The Attorney General is responsible for the administration of legal affairs and civil law proceedings on behalf of the State. “He makes the decision to determine whether a matter should be settled or be pursued in the court. It is public knowledge that upon the Attorney General taking office in 2010, he withdrew the legal briefs of most of the attorneys-at-law who were retained under the previous administration.
“He replaced some of them with lawyers closely associated with him. No explanations were given by the Attorney General at that time as to why he had to take this unusual course of action. “He has not stated that he removed them for cause.” Maharaj said the action by Ramlogan was a form of nepotism and was not done in the interest of the State
In a letter to Persad-Bissessar in August last year, Donaldson-Honeywell alleged that the AG’s office had retained attorneys who were previously involved in prison litigation against the State. Those same attorneys also represented the State in civil lawsuits while continuing to act against the State in several cases against prison officers, she claimed. Persad-Bissessar referred the letter to Ramlogan for an investigation but Maharaj yesterday said the AG could not investigate himself.
“It is a cardinal rule of natural justice, which must be known by Senior Counsel Prime Minister and Senior Counsel Attorney General, that a man cannot be a judge in his own cause,” he said. “The Attorney General could not investigate himself. That would be like in the expression ‘Caesar unto Caesar.’
“We also must not be distracted from the issue that the Prime Minister had a duty to the nation and to the public interest to have, since August 2013, conducted an investigation and taken the necessary action to protect the public interest. She failed to do so, it was like Section 34 and e-mailgate.” He said the concerns of the Solicitor General and the Prison Officers Association showed possible breaches of professional ethics, conflict of interests and criminal offences in perverting the course of justice in litigation.