Gail Alexan­der ??

There will be a lot of cel­e­brat­ing in south Trinidad.Those were the words of Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd CEO Andy John­son at 6.11 pm yes­ter­day im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced Fyz­abad-born Jus­tice An­tho­ny Thomas Aquinas Car­mona, SC, as Gov­ern­ment's choice for Pres­i­dent.

Car­mona, who had been pre­sid­ing at the San Fer­nan­do High Court, was on the job up to yes­ter­day as Gov­ern­ment de­lib­er­at­ed on the is­sue and fi­nal­ly made its de­ci­sion last evening.Mak­ing the an­nounce­ment at 6.10 pm yes­ter­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said to loud ap­plause from Cab­i­net mem­bers present:

"I have the ho­n­our and im­mense pride, to have ad­vised His Ex­cel­len­cy Pro­fes­sor George Maxwell Richards that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go for­mal­ly pro­pos­es the name of Mr Jus­tice Judge An­tho­ny Thomas Aquinas Car­mona, SC, as the nom­i­nee for the post of Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"Mr Jus­tice An­tho­ny T Car­mona, in the opin­ion of those giv­ing con­sid­er­a­tion, has demon­strat­ed the qual­i­ties of hu­man char­ac­ter, ex­pe­ri­ence and dis­tin­guished qual­i­fi­ca­tions wor­thy enough to be the nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to best serve our cit­i­zens their en­shrined and sa­cred de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and in­ter­ests with com­pas­sion, hu­man­i­ty, fair­ness and love to­wards all."

Pres­i­den­tial Nom­i­nees 04 02 2013

Car­mona, 59, is ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed T&T's fifth Pres­i­dent at the elec­toral col­lege in Par­lia­ment next week Fri­day, since Gov­ern­ment holds the ma­jor­i­ty num­bers in the Par­lia­ment, mem­bers of which com­prise the col­lege. In­cum­bent Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards' sec­ond term ends on March 17. Richards is 82.

Yes­ter­day, the PM opened her state­ment by thank­ing Richards. She said: "I wish to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of T&T to ex­tend the na­tion's deep­est grat­i­tude to our sit­ting Pres­i­dent, His Ex­cel­len­cy Pro­fes­sor George Maxwell Richards, for the dis­tin­guished ser­vice he has giv­en to us all in the past decade.

"As an aca­d­e­m­ic and for­mer prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, he brought ex­cel­lence to this es­teemed of­fice scholas­tic ex­per­tise and he is best re­mem­bered as the per­son who re­de­fined the role in­to a more peo­ple-friend­ly one."Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards has served us with ho­n­our and dig­ni­ty and he will hold, like all pres­i­dents past, a sa­cred and spe­cial place in our na­tion's his­to­ry."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was much "de­lib­er­a­tion and prayer­ful con­sid­er­a­tion "of all the rec­om­men­da­tions ad­vanced. She said the role of Pres­i­dent has be­come, more than ever, an im­por­tant one con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and it was much need­ed to ef­fect prop­er gov­er­nance and the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tenets .

Out­lin­ing de­lib­er­a­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she met yes­ter­day with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley and had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er his par­ty's choice and to brief him on the pro­ce­dure Gov­ern­ment adopt­ed to ar­rive at the best can­di­date.She said she shared with all mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment and the lead­ers of the Part­ner­ship par­ties, the names and views ex­pressed by every­one with whom she had con­sult­ed.

She said: "In this process, each mem­ber was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to state his or her view on the pre­ferred choice of nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent. At the end of this col­lab­o­ra­tion the in­di­vid­ual cho­sen as the nom­i­nee for the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go emerged.

"He has had a dis­tin­guished ca­reer in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem over the past 30 years, serv­ing un­der sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions. Mr Jus­tice An­tho­ny T Car­mona held the po­si­tions of deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions."

It is the sec­ond time a judge from south Trinidad has been nom­i­nat­ed to be Pres­i­dent.

De­ceased for­mer pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali, al­so south­ern born, was a re­tired High Court judge when he was ap­point­ed T&T's sec­ond pres­i­dent. Has­sanali was pre­ced­ed by Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke and suc­ceed­ed by Arthur NR Robin­son. The lat­ter was suc­ceed­ed by Richards.The T&T Guardian learned Car­mona was in­formed of his nom­i­na­tion about half-an-hour be­fore the Prime Min­is­ter's press con­fer­ence last evening.

Se­cu­ri­ty was im­me­di­ate­ly in­sti­tut­ed around him from yes­ter­day. Car­mona was cho­sen from among a short­list of three, which in­clud­ed re­tired judge Am­ri­ka Ti­wary-Red­dy and for­mer COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an.The list had boiled down from a lengthy one which in­clud­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, judges, busi­ness peo­ple, at­tor­neys, board mem­bers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als.

PP of­fi­cials con­firmed the PM yes­ter­day called in the ex­ec­u­tives of each of the Part­ner­ship par­ties to dis­cuss their views and in that ses­sion COP's ex­ec­u­tive stuck to their sug­ges­tion of Dook­er­an to be the nom­i­nee.Dook­er­an and for­mer MSJ leader Er­rol Mcleod, who was al­so nom­i­nat­ed for the post, re­cused them­selves as PP's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus dis­cussed the nom­i­nees.

Mcleod re­turned for the PM's sub­se­quent an­nounce­ment but Dook­er­an left the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre com­pound and was not present for the an­nounce­ment.

About An­tho­ny Car­mona

An­tho­ny Thomas Aquinas Car­mona is a High Court Judge at the Supreme Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go and a judge-elect of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.He was born on March 7 1953. He at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Hugh Wood­ing Law School be­tween 1973 and 1983. In 1989, he be­came a Se­nior State at­tor­ney.

From 1994 to 1999, he was first as­sis­tant then deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. From 2001 to 2004, he was an ap­peals coun­sel at the Of­fice of the Pros­e­cu­tor at the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for the for­mer Yu­goslavia in The Hague, the In­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal tri­bunal for Rwan­da in Arusha. In 2004, he was ap­point­ed a High Court Judge at the Supreme Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go.On De­cem­ber 12, 2011, he was elect­ed as a judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court. (Source: Wikipedia).