At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan is con­sid­er­ing fil­ing a mo­tion to have Dr Kei­th Row­ley tak­en be­fore Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for "de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing the House and im­pugn­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al." The AG con­demned as "base­less, false and po­lit­i­cal­ly mis­chie­vous," Dr Row­ley's claim at Wednes­day's sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that he had vis­it­ed this coun­try's mis­sion in New York and made com­ments about the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the staff.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader made the claim in a pri­vate mo­tion in which he called on the House to con­demn for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed, who said he would work with Par­lia­ment to ad­dress the eth­nic im­bal­ance in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice. Row­ley said he was told by staff at the T&T mis­sion in New York that Ram­lo­gan vis­it­ed and ex­pressed con­cern about the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the staff there. He told the Low­er House: "I think was last No­vem­ber, and while I was there I took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it our mis­sion in New York and I was very dis­tressed by the num­ber of staff mem­bers who came to me to tell me that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go paid a vis­it to the mis­sion, as I was pay­ing, and on en­try to the mis­sion the on­ly thing he was in­ter­est­ed in from his open­ing com­ment in the mis­sion was the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the mis­sion.

"And he made com­ments open­ly to the staff about their eth­nic com­po­si­tion, and raised ques­tions about the need to fix it," he added. Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er lat­er pro­duced doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence to show that since as­sum­ing of­fice al­most one year ago, the AG had nev­er trav­elled to New York. Warn­er called on Row­ley to apol­o­gise for his com­ments, as did sev­er­al oth­er gov­ern­ment MPs, in­clud­ing Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who re­peat­ed­ly called on Row­ley to apol­o­gise for mis­lead­ing the House. Row­ley did not apol­o­gise. While seat­ed, he said: "The staff lied then?" In his state­ment yes­ter­day con­demn­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader's claims, Ram­lo­gan said he has not vis­it­ed New York in any ca­pac­i­ty, pri­vate or of­fi­cial, in last two years.

He al­so point­ed out that he had en­joyed a long and dis­tin­guished ca­reer at the Bar where he had rep­re­sent­ed nu­mer­ous vic­tims of dis­crim­i­na­tion and un­fair treat­ment from all walks of life, eth­nic­i­ties and re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions. The AG list­ed among his most suc­cess­ful cas­es, rep­re­sent­ing the late George Daniel in a mat­ter in­volv­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty and Damien Be­la­fonte in a case of dis­crim­i­na­tion against Rasta­far­i­ans.

Ram­lo­gan said he had al­so rep­re­sent­ed dozens of po­lice of­fi­cers from the ranks of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to con­sta­ble, as well as sev­er­al se­nior pub­lic ser­vants in cas­es of dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Among his most no­table clients were Mar­lene Coudray, who is now the May­or of San Fer­nan­do and De­vant Ma­haraj, the chair­man of the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC). "The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's rep­u­ta­tion for equal­i­ty of treat­ment for all cit­i­zens is well-es­tab­lished and Dr Row­ley's mis­guid­ed at­tempt to slan­der/taint his good name is de­serv­ing of the strongest con­dem­na­tion," Ram­lo­gan said.