Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In the up­com­ing Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi will seek ap­proval to re­lease all in­for­ma­tion vol­un­tar­i­ly sup­plied by him to the Sen­ate’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee in his re­cent mat­ter.

Al-Rawi con­firmed this yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to for­mer House speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed’s call for the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) to break its “si­lence” and ad­dress the con­duct of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment sen­a­tors Al-Rawi and Janelle John-Bates, who were brought be­fore the Sen­ate’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

In the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed First Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, Al-Rawi and John-Bates were in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the com­mit­tee for an al­leged breach of par­lia­men­tary du­ty. The al­le­ga­tions cen­tred on claims they as­sist­ed in help­ing “draft” for­mer PNM health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s state­ment for an in­quiry by Par­lia­ment’s Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC), which was ex­am­in­ing the State’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. John-Bates was a PAAC mem­ber at the time.

The com­mit­tee held pri­vate meet­ings this month. The First Ses­sion end­ed on May 22 but no re­port on the mat­ter was pre­sent­ed to the Sen­ate on that fi­nal day. The Sec­ond Ses­sion be­gins next Fri­day.

Mo­hammed said the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act of 1986 pro­vides for the reg­u­la­tion of the le­gal pro­fes­sion and the dis­ci­pline of its mem­bers through LATT.
He ar­gued that with de­lib­er­a­tions un­der­way when the First Ses­sion end­ed and no clear in­di­ca­tion from Gov­ern­ment on the out­come, it ap­peared John-Bates and Al-Rawi had es­caped sanc­tions.

“This is most un­for­tu­nate and shouldn’t be al­lowed to hap­pen. You can­not claim an all-out war against crime and then be se­lec­tive in ap­ply­ing sanc­tions. Tam­per­ing with ev­i­dence in a qua­si-ju­di­cial in­quiry clear­ly points to se­ri­ous con­se­quences, ob­vi­ous­ly known to any at­tor­ney, more so a se­nior coun­sel,” Mo­hammed said, adding LATT’s con­tin­ued si­lence was trou­bling.

Mo­hammed cit­ed Part A of the Code of Ethics and pro­vi­sions re­quir­ing at­tor­neys to main­tain the high­est stan­dards of in­tegri­ty and dig­ni­ty and to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws with­out aid­ing or abet­ting un­law­ful con­duct.
He said based on the ma­te­r­i­al aris­ing from the mat­ter, jus­tice de­mand­ed ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion by LATT.

“Don’t ex­pect a word from all the ‘silk’ peo­ple be­long­ing to that se­lect priv­i­leged group in the le­gal pro­fes­sion. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gan­der. The im­par­tial ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice is the foun­da­tion up­on which the lib­er­ties of a free peo­ple rest. With­out jus­tice, law is just words on pa­per. The Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s con­tin­ued si­lence in this mat­ter needs clar­i­fi­ca­tion,” he said.

LATT pres­i­dent Lynette See­baran-Suite did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Mo­hammed’s state­ment, nei­ther did John-Bates.

Al-Rawi, how­ev­er, said Mo­hammed was “mis­guid­ed” in call­ing for ac­tion by LATT.

“Mr Mo­hammed will do well to take note that I’m ea­ger for the stric­tures against pub­li­ca­tion of the go­ings on in the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges to be re­moved so I can demon­strate the pro­pri­ety of my ac­tions with full vigour,” Al-Rawi told Guardian Me­dia.

“I’m ful­ly ca­pa­ble of an­swer­ing the spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions made against me and shall on the re­sump­tion of Par­lia­ment in the next ses­sion be seek­ing ap­proval to re­lease all in­for­ma­tion vol­un­tar­i­ly sup­plied by me to the Com­mit­tee if they will en­ter­tain same.”

He de­scribed Mo­hammed’s state­ment as “child­ish­ly un­for­tu­nate and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a clear ig­no­rance of the law and the stric­tures of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act Ch. 90:03,” and said it was al­so “defam­a­to­ry, sub­ject to a po­ten­tial de­fence of fair priv­i­lege in re­la­tion to a mat­ter of pub­lic im­por­tance.”