Contractor Emile Elias yesterday said DPPs had too much power in T&T, adding the office should be restricted to terms. Speaking at the Trinidad Union Club’s guest speaker series at Nicholas Towers, Port-of-Spain, Elias also wondered why former executive chairman of Udecott, Calder Hart, had not yet been charged with perjury. He reminded the audience that Hart had testified that no member of his family had received a contract from Udecott.
He said it was subsequently proven that Hart’s brother-in-law and his wife’s brother-in-law had received a contract for $368 million to build the Ministry of Legal Affairs tower. Elias said: “Attorney Vernon de Lima went to Malaysia. He got the birth certificates of Calder Hart’s wife and her brother and proved they were related. “That was four years ago. No charge for perjury has been laid against Calder Hart. It’s very simple. He should be charged with perjury and brought before the courts.
“Maybe he will say ‘I don’t know my brother-in-law. I don’t know how he got into my house and used my private fax to send a fax to Udecott accepting the contract.’” Elias also questioned why former DPP Geoffrey Henderson (now a High Court judge) failed to follow up on his written complaints from August 2, 2005, that a witness before another commission of enquiry had perjured himself. He said he received a response from the DPP three days later, pledging to take action after the completion of the enquiry.
Elias said he wrote to DPP Henderson in October 2005, April 2006 and December 2006 asking for an update, to no avail. “I am deeply disappointed that there was not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement after the first one,” said Elias. In an address on the topic, “Perjury and the DPP — should he be accountable to no one”, Elias said DPPs in T&T had too much power and that instead of being appointed for life, they should be restricted to two four-or-five-year terms.
He added in light of the fact that Cabinet had agreed to provide the office of DPP with considerable additional manpower, one of the new assistant DPPs should be mandated to head a perjury unit which would go after people who lied in court in official documents or before a commission of enquiry. The main point of Elias’ presentation was the fact that society did not have any recourse if a DPP failed to exercise his discretion to charge someone.
In making the point about the importance of official action against people who perjured themselves, Elias referred to a statement by former High Court judge Anthony Carmona (now the President) in December 2005 during a trial that “perjury attacks at the root of the administration of justice. It is like a rodent. It eats away the very fabric of justice.”
Elias noted that Justice Carmona had sentenced the person in question, a woman, to 30 days in jail when the law would have allowed him to impose a sentence of up to seven years, which would have sent a message to the society.