Akash Sama­roo

De­spite damn­ing crit­i­cism of her in the re­cent­ly pub­li­cised Stan­ley John re­port, for­mer So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al (SG) Car­ol Her­nan­dez is re­fus­ing to com­ment on the find­ings.

In fact, Her­nan­dez told Guardian Me­dia she has not yet read the re­port which called in­to ques­tion her will­ing­ness to ful­ly in­ves­ti­gate what hap­pened with the miss­ing case file that could po­ten­tial­ly cost the State and tax­pay­ers over $20 mil­lion in dam­ages.

The for­mer SG added she may read it some­time in the fu­ture, but she un­der­scored that she is now re­tired.

The SG and Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s de­part­ments were de­scribed as “in­ept” and “in­com­pe­tent” as it re­lat­ed to the miss­ing case file.

The dis­ap­pear­ance of the file led to nine men, who were for­mer­ly ac­cused of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, be­ing award­ed a de­fault judg­ment of over $20 mil­lion for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

The in­ves­tiga­tive team con­clud­ed that the file, which was sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ered in an un­oc­cu­pied of­fice was placed there de­lib­er­ate­ly and has even called for the trans­fer of staff who “failed their du­ty to the State.”

The re­port claimed that up­on learn­ing that the miss­ing file was found, Her­nan­dez did not im­me­di­ate­ly act to deal with the mat­ter.

It al­so added that when in­ter­viewed on March 1, 2023, Her­nan­dez showed lit­tle in­ter­est in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Her­nan­dez al­so of­fered no com­ment on how the in­ves­tiga­tive team ar­rived at its find­ings.

How­ev­er, the As­sem­bly of Cen­tral Le­gal Prac­ti­tion­ers (ACLP) be­lieves the re­port ap­pears to shift blame from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and in­stead thrusts it on­to pub­lic ser­vants.

ACLP Pres­i­dent Kiel Tak­lals­ingh said yes­ter­day, “What you have hap­pen­ing here is an in­ves­ti­ga­tor ap­point­ed by the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate to in­ves­ti­gate pub­lic ser­vants. I think quite frankly this is a col­lat­er­al at­tack on the pub­lic ser­vice and se­nior pub­lic ser­vants.”

Noth­ing that in­ter­views were done with Her­nan­dez and cur­rent act­ing SG Kar­lene Seenath, Tak­lals­ingh asked, “Has the in­ves­ti­ga­tor in­ter­viewed the AG to find out his role in the mat­ter? What did he do? When did it come to his at­ten­tion? What were his im­me­di­ate steps? I have al­so not seen any rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the re­port of the at­tor­neys on the oth­er side, they would have had all the facts as well, so why not en­gage them?”

Re­spond­ing to the re­port’s con­clu­sion that no one should be dis­ci­plined or charged for the neg­li­gence high­light­ed in its find­ings, Tak­lals­ingh said, “This is po­lit­i­cal neg­li­gence in my view, a fail­ure of lead­er­ship by the AG and there should be some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty cast there.”

Mean­while, the East­ern Lawyers As­so­ci­a­tion (ELS), said the re­port high­lights and ex­pos­es the sys­temic short­com­ings of the sys­tem, staff short­ages and po­ten­tial for cor­rup­tion that ex­ists and that do not sur­prise prac­ti­tion­ers who fre­quent­ly in­ter­act with State At­tor­neys at the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment.

In a state­ment, the ELS said, “Giv­en the vol­ume of mat­ters and high-stress en­vi­ron­ment many of the ex­pe­ri­enced at­tor­neys have left and sought out op­por­tu­ni­ties else­where in­clud­ing the ju­di­cia­ry and on­ly see their time at the AG’s of­fice as a step­ping stone.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the pub­lic should not be too dis­tract­ed that no charges or dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion were rec­om­mend­ed.

“But con­cen­trate on the broad­er sys­temic is­sues that ex­ist with­in the AG’s of­fice that need to be ad­dressed,” it ad­vised.

When con­tact­ed for its view on the mat­ter, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) would on­ly say that it is con­sid­er­ing the re­port at this time.

Ef­forts to get a com­ment from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour were un­suc­cess­ful.