Renu­ka Singh

Steps tak­en by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to sue search en­gine and e-mail provider Google for in­for­ma­tion on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan's e-mails re­main shroud­ed in se­cre­cy, but it ap­pears that the com­mis­sion's move has usurped the role and func­tion of the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty.The com­mis­sion nev­er re­quest­ed the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty to in­voke the Mu­tu­al Le­gal As­sis­tance Treaty (MLAT) even though the au­thor­i­ty is the des­ig­nat­ed agency for re­quest­ing help from its Unit­ed States coun­ter­part to ob­tain the in­for­ma­tion from Google.

Sources told the Sun­day Guardian that the com­mis­sion may have de­cid­ed on a le­gal av­enue oth­er than the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty be­cause its re­quests to Google con­cerned At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, though an in­de­pen­dent body, falls un­der the purview of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and is housed in the same build­ing as his of­fice.Of the three e-mails in ques­tion, two pur­port­ed­ly be­long to Ram­lo­gan and the oth­er to the Prime Min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, the com­mis­sion is seek­ing "the con­tents of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions to and from the anand@tstt.net.tt e-mail ac­count for Sep­tem­ber 2012, to the ex­tent such in­for­ma­tion is avail­able..."In two brief tele­phone in­ter­views on Fri­day and yes­ter­day, In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don re­mained guard­ed on the is­sue. He said he knew noth­ing about sidelin­ing the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty and re­fused to com­ment fur­ther.

"Ma'am, we act­ed on the best ad­vice and there is noth­ing fur­ther I can say on this mat­ter," he said.Pressed fur­ther as to who would be pay­ing for the for­eign law firm's ser­vices, Gor­don end­ed the in­ter­view.The com­mis­sion has en­gaged the ser­vices of Gi­na Durham, a lawyer at­tached to San Fran­ciso-based law firm DLA Piper. Durham is a part­ner in the firm and is al­so co-chair for the US So­cial Me­dia Prac­tice.

Gor­don did add that he was hes­i­tant to speak on the mat­ter as he want­ed it to "move for­ward, with­out a lot of bag­gage."Head of Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, Ne­tram Kow­lessar, has al­so re­mained silent on the is­sue of whether he was asked to in­voke the MLAT to fa­cil­i­tate for­eign as­sis­tance."I can­not com­ment on this mat­ter. I can­not con­firm or de­ny if any re­quest was made to the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty," Kow­lessar said

He did con­firm, how­ev­er, that seek­ing for­eign as­sis­tance for lo­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions is the role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty."The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty is the des­ig­nat­ed au­thor­i­ty for is­su­ing, re­ceiv­ing and ex­e­cut­ing MLAT re­quests. I can on­ly act once a re­quest is made to me," Kow­lessar ex­plained.Ram­lo­gan is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try but re­spond­ed to ques­tions from the Sun­day Guardian by e-mail.

"The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty does not have any such pow­er in law. Be­yond that, I can­not say more as I have dis­qual­i­fied my­self from the mat­ter as head of the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty," Ram­lo­gan said.The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion took the de­ci­sion to en­gage a for­eign law firm back when there was still a quo­rum. Gor­don re­cused him­self from this mat­ter on Ju­ly 4, 2013, where­as the com­mis­sion's newest mem­ber, ac­coun­tant Joel Ed­wards, re­signed last month.

Key de­vel­op­ments in probe

�2 On May 20, 2012, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed the de­tails of 31 "e-mails" in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives dur­ing his mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar

�2 The e-mails were pur­port­ed to have been ex­changes among sev­er­al key of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, in an al­leged plot to per­vert the course of jus­tice

�2 It was re­port­ed that some nine months be­fore mak­ing his dis­clo­sure pub­lic, Row­ley sent copies of the e-mails to for­mer pres­i­dent Prof George Maxwell Richards. Row­ley went pub­lic with the is­sue when Richards did not re­spond

�2 Dur­ing the months of dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed, it was re­port­ed that Row­ley met pri­vate­ly with In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don at his home be­fore mak­ing the May 20 rev­e­la­tions in Par­lia­ment

�2 DCP Mervyn Richards was man­dat­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter, but af­ter a few months the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was put on the back burn­er