Yvonne Ba­boolal

Af­ter re­peat­ed calls by the Op­po­si­tion, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion may fi­nal­ly be­gin in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the au­then­tic­i­ty of 31 e-mails im­pli­cat­ing high gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in mis­con­duct, and com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don has said he will re­cuse him­self from the probe.This was dis­closed in a re­lease from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's act­ing reg­is­trar Lisa Phillips yes­ter­day.Gor­don's pub­lic dis­clo­sure of his de­ci­sion came two weeks af­ter he had al­ready in­di­cat­ed to the com­mis­sion his in­ten­tion to do so.The rea­son giv­en for his planned re­cusal was that he was ful­ly con­scious of the im­por­tance of per­cep­tion.

His de­ci­sion fol­lows sev­er­al calls for his re­cusal from any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the e-mails from dif­fer­ent quar­ters, in­clud­ing at­tor­ney for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Is­rael Khan, SC, and Dana See­ta­hal, SC, who is act­ing for At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.They said Gor­don should re­cuse him­self to pre­vent any per­cep­tion of bias.Yes­ter­day, Khan went one step fur­ther and called for Gor­don's res­ig­na­tion. His call was echoed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.Short­ly be­fore Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley read out the e-mails in Par­lia­ment on May 20, he met with Gor­don at Gor­don's house in what some have de­scribed as a "se­cret" meet­ing.In his Ju­ly 12 let­ter to Gor­don, Khan said he was in­struct­ed to ask for­mal­ly for Gor­don to re­cuse him­self from any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the e-mails.

He said in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day that Gor­don's de­ci­sion to re­cuse him­self was an in­di­rect ad­mis­sion that any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the e-mails over which he pre­sides will be taint­ed."He should go one step fur­ther and do the de­cent and ho­n­ourable thing and re­sign from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion be­cause he will not be able to sit on any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing any Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, whether he is a mem­ber of PNM or the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship," he said."We don't know what tran­spired in Gor­don's se­cret meet­ing with Row­ley. I am of the view that the rea­son­able, in­no­cent by­stander would per­ceive there was a con­spir­a­cy be­tween Gor­don and Row­ley to bring the Gov­ern­ment down in re­la­tion to the e-mails."

Khan said if Gor­don were to sit on any mat­ter in re­la­tion to any Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, this would open the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to court ac­tions like lit­i­ga­tion and ju­di­cial re­view.Com­ment­ing on the com­mis­sion's pos­si­ble in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the e-mails, Khan said if the com­mis­sion­ers end up with a pri­ma fa­cie case in­volv­ing wrong­do­ing by any of the Gov­ern­ment MPs in­volved, or Row­ley, they would have to send the mat­ter to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions who, in turn, would have to send it back to the po­lice.Gor­don, the day af­ter he met Row­ley at his home, sent an aide-mem­oire to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion about the meet­ing.

In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's re­lease

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's re­lease yes­ter­day said: "Please be ad­vised that at the first meet­ing of the sev­enth In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion which was held on Thurs­day Ju­ly 4, 2013, chair­man Ken­neth Gor­don in­di­cat­ed that he will re­cuse him­self from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any de­lib­er­a­tions or de­ci­sion re­gard­ing any in­ves­ti­ga­tion the com­mis­sion may un­der­take in­to the au­then­tic­i­ty of the al­leged e-mails dis­closed by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on May 20, 2013, as he was cog­nisant of the im­por­tance of per­cep­tion."Mr Gor­don's de­ci­sion was con­firmed at the sec­ond meet­ing of the sev­enth com­mis­sion, which took place on Tues­day Ju­ly 9, 2013."Act­ing reg­is­trar Lisa Phillips yes­ter­day al­so wrote to Khan in­form­ing him of Gor­don's de­ci­sion.She told Khan that Gor­don has in­di­cat­ed he will re­cuse him­self from "par­tic­i­pat­ing in any de­lib­er­a­tions or de­ci­sion re­gard­ing any in­ves­ti­ga­tion the com­mis­sion may un­der­take in­to a doc­u­ment re­ceived from for­mer pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards on March 16, 2013, pur­port­ing to be e-mails in which it is sug­gest­ed that cer­tain per­sons in pub­lic life/per­sons ex­er­cis­ing pub­lic func­tions, may have breached the pro­vi­sions of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act."

PNM: Ac­tion of a prop­er man

In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don's de­ci­sion to re­cuse him­self is the ac­tion of a prop­er man act­ing prop­er­ly and ought not to be seen as an ad­mis­sion of wrong­do­ing on his part.

This was the re­ac­tion of PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day."The PNM ac­cepts that Khan is ad­vo­cat­ing his client's best in­ter­est, but the par­ty does not share his views, as to ac­cept them would re­quire that every judge of the High Court who has met with an al­le­ga­tion of ap­par­ent bias should re­sign," Al-Rawi said."A re­cusal, os­ten­si­bly on the grounds of ap­par­ent bias, could nev­er be an ad­mis­sion of ac­tu­al bias or im­pro­pri­ety. A re­cusal in law by a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer or a per­son in a qua­si-ju­di­cial ca­pac­i­ty is a phe­nom­e­non which ex­ists so the max­im of eq­ui­ty, that jus­tice must not on­ly be done but be seen to be done, is al­ways pre­served."Al-Rawi said this facet of the law rep­re­sents the high­est lev­el of so­phis­ti­ca­tion and ma­tu­ri­ty in the realm of due process."Put in sim­ple terms, Mr Gor­don's ac­tion ought not to be seen as any ad­mis­sion of wrong­do­ing on his part but should be seen as a prop­er man act­ing prop­er­ly so that the ap­pear­ance of jus­tice be­ing served and car­ried out is al­ways clear."He said the PNM was al­ways con­fi­dent the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion head­ed by Gor­don would have done what it con­sid­ered to be the ap­pro­pri­ate thing in all of the cir­cum­stances.