SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

From the con­tro­ver­sial use of a gov­ern­ment cred­it card to ques­tions sur­round­ing the source of a $143,800 bank trans­ac­tion, the po­lit­i­cal ca­reer of Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has been marked by scruti­ny.

Now her el­e­va­tion to a key min­is­te­r­i­al role in the Cab­i­net of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has brought her fur­ther in­to the spot­light.

Soon af­ter he was sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter last Mon­day, Young ap­point­ed Robin­son-Reg­is as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs. Af­ter tak­ing her oath, Robin­son-Reg­is said she was “shocked” when she was told she would be­come the next AG but promised to do her best on the job.

Un­der then-prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Robin­son-Reg­is act­ed as AG sev­er­al times.

She re­placed Regi­nald Ar­mour who re­cent­ly re­signed to take up a job in the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court abroad.

Young said he be­lieved Robin­son-Reg­is was the “per­fect At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for the cur­rent pe­ri­od” but de­clined to say what spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion was giv­en in choos­ing the Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP for that port­fo­lio.

Robin­son-Reg­is is T&T’s 18th AG and the fourth woman to hold the po­si­tion of pri­ma­ry le­gal ad­vi­sor to the Gov­ern­ment.

With­in hours of her ap­point­ment, pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan, SC, ex­pressed con­cern that Robin­son-Reg­is lacked le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence as she was not a prac­tis­ing at­tor­ney and her whole ca­reer was vest­ed in pol­i­tics.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so felt Robin­son-Reg­is was not qual­i­fied for the po­si­tion.

Ad­dress­ing UNC sup­port­ers at the Brazil Sec­ondary School last Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said records from the 8, 10, 11 and 12th Par­lia­ments showed that 319 bills had been brought to the House but Robin­son-Reg­is has on­ly de­bat­ed 54 bills.

“Let’s see as AG if she would speak. I don’t know if you can re­mem­ber, I can’t re­mem­ber a sin­gle case this woman fight in any cour­t­house,” the Op­po­si­tion Leader said, not­ing that the AG’s job is to present and de­fend bills.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who al­so spoke at the meet­ing, said the biggest ques­tion peo­ple have been ask­ing is if Robin­son-Reg­is is a re­al lawyer.

“Every­body ask­ing ... no­body knows,” he said

In re­sponse to queries about whether she has a cur­rent prac­tis­ing cer­tifi­cate, Robin­son-Reg­is said this did not af­fect her ap­point­ment as AG un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.

In a state­ment in a dai­ly news­pa­per on Wednes­day, Robin­son-Reg­is said she was ad­mit­ted to the Bar in T&T as a prac­ti­tion­er mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and her name was added to the roll of at­tor­neys in ac­cor­dance with the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act.

She ad­mit­ted af­ter 2001 she stopped pay­ing the sub­scrip­tion to the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and the last time she en­gaged in ac­tive prac­tice was around that time.

The role of AG does not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­quire prac­tis­ing as an ad­vo­cate, she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is ex­plained that when peo­ple sue the State, the AG is not re­quired to ap­pear in court as an ad­vo­cate and the usu­al course is that law of­fi­cers from the rel­e­vant de­part­ment of the Min­istry of the AG’s of­fice ap­pear as ad­vo­cates and in­struct­ing at­tor­neys.

Sec­tion 24 (2) of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act makes pro­vi­sions for non-prac­tis­ing mem­bers to ob­tain a prac­tis­ing cer­tifi­cate once their cir­cum­stances have changed.

Late last year, Robin­son-Reg­is act­ed as AG when a con­tro­ver­sial is­sue made head­lines—the planned in­tro­duc­tion of leg­is­la­tion that would have dis­qual­i­fied pen­sion­ers from ac­cess­ing the se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion.

On De­cem­ber 9, the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion and Pub­lic As­sis­tance) Bill 2024 was laid in Par­lia­ment. A ma­jor amend­ment was pro­posed in the bill to dis­qual­i­fy peo­ple with sav­ings ex­ceed­ing $25,000 from ac­cess­ing the old pen­sion.

When the is­sue was brought to the fore by Per­sad-Bisses­sar it cre­at­ed an up­roar among the pop­u­la­tion with many of the view that the sav­ings cap was too low and would un­fair­ly dis­en­fran­chise peo­ple who gen­uine­ly need­ed the $3,500 grant.

The con­tro­ver­sial amend­ment was lat­er de­scribed as an er­ror by then AG Ar­mour, who claimed a pub­lic ser­vant was re­spon­si­ble for in­sert­ing the amend­ment.

When the bill came to the at­ten­tion of Par­lia­ment on No­vem­ber 21, Ar­mour was out of the coun­try and Robin­son-Reg­is was act­ing as AG.

Ar­mour took full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the er­ror and promised to with­draw the amend­ment from the bill.

Robin­son-Reg­is found her­self mired in con­tro­ver­sy in 2016 when she was asked to ex­plain a $143,800 bank trans­ac­tion at First Cit­i­zens.

The trans­ac­tions raised red flags, caus­ing the bank to call on the min­is­ter to ac­count for how the cash was ob­tained. Robin­son-Reg­is even­tu­al­ly closed her ac­count with the bank cit­ing a breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

A 2006 Comp­trol­ler of Ac­counts re­port stat­ed that Robin­son-Reg­is had an unau­tho­rised cred­it card over­draft of $174,000.

The card, giv­en to her as a min­is­ter was used for per­son­al items such as fer­til­i­ty ser­vices, a wig and cloth­ing. Robin­son-Reg­is even­tu­al­ly apol­o­gised for us­ing the card.

Guardian Me­dia sent a What­sApp mes­sage to Robin­son-Reg­is on Tues­day re­quest­ing an in­ter­view but she did not re­spond.

About Robin­son-Reg­is

Robin­son-Reg­is first en­tered Par­lia­ment in 1992 as a sen­a­tor and held the port­fo­lio of Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion from 1992 to 1994.

In 1995, she was elect­ed MP for Arou­ca South (now Arou­ca/Mal­oney).

Over the last three decades, she has served as an Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment MP. Her ap­point­ment as Leader of the House in 2015 made her the first woman in the his­to­ry of T&T to as­sume that role.

Robin­son-Reg­is has worked in sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Le­gal Af­fairs, Hous­ing and Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment.

She is cur­rent­ly the PNM’s la­dy vice chair­man.