At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi is un­der fire from sev­er­al quar­ters af­ter the col­lapse of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) left be­hind a tan­gled mess. The AG is al­so un­der heavy pub­lic scruti­ny for a seem­ing­ly failed se­lec­tion process for an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and CoP, and the on­go­ing le­gal mat­ters in­volv­ing Gary Grif­fith, the PSC, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and the Gov­ern­ment.

Ques­tions have al­so been asked about the Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021) which was com­pared to the in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment and seemed to be specif­i­cal­ly draft­ed with one per­son in mind. Con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Sec­tion 34 led to then jus­tice min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney hav­ing to demit of­fice.

Sev­er­al le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies and key of­fice hold­ers spoke with Guardian Me­dia about the storm brew­ing for Al-Rawi and the ques­tion­able le­gal no­tice.

At­tor­neys Dave Per­sad and Mar­tin George, as well as for­mer PSC chair­man Dr Ramesh De­osaran and po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany said the AG must be held to ac­count for Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021). The com­men­ta­tors be­lieve it was a poor­ly draft­ed piece of leg­is­la­tion that ap­peared to com­pro­mise the se­lec­tion process for a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

Ac­cord­ing to De­osaran, there is a po­lit­i­cal and moral oblig­a­tion for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to ac­count for in­sert­ing the no­tice he la­belled "sus­pi­cious" and "con­fus­ing".

Ramesh Deosaran

"Giv­en the com­plete col­lapse of the PSC, the con­fus­ing, in­valid bits of re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion by Gov­ern­ment and the great loss of pub­lic con­fi­dence in sev­er­al state in­sti­tu­tions, the Gov­ern­ment in the first place must now pro­pose a se­ri­ous re­view of the leg­isla­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive frame­work (Act No 6 of 2006) for the pow­ers of the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, the man­ner of his or her ap­point­ment, the po­lit­i­cal role of Par­lia­ment, the role of the pres­i­dent and whether or not this coun­try re­al­ly needs an in­flat­ed struc­ture like the PSC," De­osaran said.

If the Gov­ern­ment re­fus­es to do what is now re­quired, then the Op­po­si­tion should know what its con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion is, De­osaran added.

He said the ur­gency of this re­quire­ment al­so flows from the PM's re­cent pub­lic state­ment that the present PSC leg­is­la­tion is "worse" than it was be­fore 2006 when the PM had a di­rect ve­to over the ap­point­ment of a CoP.

"Giv­en wide­spread pub­lic wor­ry, the PM should make an an­nounce­ment to this ef­fect as soon as pos­si­ble (a re­view of the leg­isla­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive frame­work). The AG Faris Al-Rawi should not stand in the way of this over­haul. To do oth­er­wise, would mere­ly ag­gra­vate the 'er­ror' as ad­mit­ted by the PM and the en­tire mis­han­dling of the process for ap­point­ing a CoP," De­osaran said.

While we have now passed the stage of blam­ing the PSC chair­man or its mem­bers, he said, there is at least "a po­lit­i­cal and moral oblig­a­tion for the PM and AG to al­so ac­count for in­sert­ing the con­fus­ing Le­gal No­tice 183 with its sus­pi­cious Clause 4 and con­se­quent po­lit­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions."

There are too many se­ri­ous unan­swered ques­tions, he said. "Who re­al­ly ad­vised PSC Chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad to by­pass the views of her fel­low com­mis­sion­ers and take cer­tain ac­tions, some of which are now cost­ing tax­pay­ers? Who was the in­vis­i­ble hand?" he asked.

Prof Hamid Ghany.

Prof Hamid Ghany

"Re­gard­less of what in­ter­pre­ta­tion one may put on Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021, the bot­tom line is that the AG is in­di­vid­u­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for it. That in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at­tach­es to him re­gard­less of how many se­nior coun­sels were in­volved in draft­ing it for him," said po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist and Sun­day Guardian colum­nist Prof Hamid Ghany.

As a Min­is­ter, Ghany said, Al-Rawi is en­ti­tled to de­part­men­tal ad­vice, "how­ev­er, on­ly he alone takes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if there is pol­i­cy er­ror un­der the cul­pa­bil­i­ty rule of the con­sti­tu­tion­al doc­trine of in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. He may take the view that he is an at­tor­ney act­ing on in­struc­tions, but at the end of the day, on­ly he is min­is­te­ri­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for the pol­i­cy po­si­tions of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

"Fur­ther­more, he is no or­di­nary Min­is­ter be­cause with­out his of­fice there can be no Cab­i­net."

Martin Daly SC

At­tor­ney Mar­tin Daly

While Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly said re­spect for the court’s pro­ceed­ings re­quires him to re­frain from com­ment­ing on le­gal is­sues such as the le­gal sta­tus of Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021, he did com­ment on the AG’s predica­ment.

He be­lieved Al-Rawi’s po­si­tion as at­tor­ney gen­er­al may be at risk.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly for the AG, he al­ready looks bad be­cause the PM pub­licly em­braced the opin­ion of (Rol­ston) Nel­son, SC and con­fessed that an er­ror was made. The AG’s po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal is clear­ly at risk," he said.

"The out­come of the Court pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to that no­tice is not the on­ly risk he is fac­ing. There have been some el­e­ments of self-pro­mo­tion that may be cause for ir­ri­ta­tion with­in a Cab­i­net that con­tains oth­er mem­bers with high am­bi­tions."

In Au­gust, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, through the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs, launched a me­dia cam­paign, via so­cial me­dia plat­forms, called AG Talks.

Dur­ing the se­ries, Al-Rawi dis­cussed pol­i­cy at length with jour­nal­ists, in­clud­ing Ke­jan Haynes and De­sha Ramb­ha­jan.

Constitutional Attorney Martin George

At­tor­ney Mar­tin George

For­mer mem­ber of the PSC Mar­tin George de­scribed No­tice 183 of 2021 as a bad­ly draft­ed piece of leg­is­la­tion that the Gov­ern­ment and its le­gal of­fi­cers must ac­count for.

He said the no­tice was part of the prob­lem in the PSC de­ba­cle, be­liev­ing that it con­strained all par­ties in­volved in the process of ap­point­ing an act­ing com­mis­sion­er.

"It says noth­ing about what the Pres­i­dent is to do in re­ceipt of that list, so her hands would have been tied. It would ap­pear, re­spec­tive­ly, in that re­gard, if there is noth­ing to in­di­cate to her what to do with that list. So then you ask your­self, what was the pur­pose, in­tent and ob­jec­tive be­hind this leg­is­la­tion be­ing so hasti­ly draft­ed and rushed through Par­lia­ment at the last minute? t

"Par­tic­u­lar­ly when you knew in a cou­ple of months, there would be the va­can­cy aris­ing at the end of the three-year term ap­point­ment of the sub­stan­tive sit­ting com­mis­sion­er of po­lice."

George said the na­tion must de­mand re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, ex­pla­na­tions and an­swers, so the is­sue can be ful­ly un­der­stood and so the er­ror won’t be re­peat­ed.

"When one has re­gard to the com­para­tor of Sec­tion 34 and that mas­sive scan­dal which re­sult­ed, we saw the min­is­ter of jus­tice then, Mr Her­bert Vol­ney, he had to leave of­fice as a re­sult of that fi­as­co. So, in a sim­i­lar way, we are say­ing, there must be some reck­on­ing and ac­count­ing, in terms of what has hap­pened here in this par­tic­u­lar sce­nario," he said.

The at­tor­ney said the call for ac­count­abil­i­ty from the Gov­ern­ment does not ab­solve the PSC. He said the com­mis­sion, now de­void of mem­bers, com­mit­ted nu­mer­ous er­rors and breach­es dur­ing the process.

"At the end of the day, there have been peo­ple who have been lured in­to this trap or se­duced in­to this un­for­tu­nate piece of leg­is­la­tion. If they had sim­ply stuck to the ba­sics and fun­da­men­tals, which were be­fore them...you would have avoid­ed this le­gal pit­fall which has been dug and set here in this leg­is­la­tion...not nec­es­sar­i­ly sug­gest­ing it was done de­lib­er­ate­ly," George added.

Seenath Jairam

Suzanne Sheppard

At­tor­ney Seenath Jairam

For­mer pres­i­dent of the law as­so­ci­a­tion and PSC mem­ber Seenath Jairam be­lieves the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has noth­ing to an­swer for in re­la­tion to the le­gal no­tice.

He called crit­i­cism of Al-Rawi in this mat­ter "po­lit­i­cal non­sense and cheap pol­i­tics."

The se­nior coun­sel said an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al does not draft leg­is­la­tion in iso­la­tion and there are mul­ti­ple steps and checks and bal­ances in place.

He said, for in­stance, there are trained drafts­men who draft leg­is­la­tion, adding that the AG al­so takes pro­posed law to the Cab­i­net and Par­lia­ment for re­view, while al­so get­ting ad­vice from se­nior coun­sels.

"Much ado about noth­ing...The courts will make sure it con­forms to the Con­sti­tu­tion," Jairam said.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisess­sar

Call­ing for the AG’s re­moval from of­fice, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Thurs­day’s res­ig­na­tion of Bliss Seep­er­sad as PSC chair­man, "shows how dan­ger­ous and in­com­pe­tent At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi has be­come."

She claimed in a press con­fer­ence that the en­tire CoP ap­point­ment cri­sis was "birthed from his tam­per­ing with the process so he can have some in­flu­ence over the TTPS."

Para­graph 4 of the no­tice

Para­graph 4 of the no­tice, in its en­tire­ty, reads, "Where ei­ther the post of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice or deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice is va­cant or is about to be­come va­cant, the Com­mis­sion may sub­mit to the Pres­i­dent a list of suit­ably qual­i­fied per­sons from amongst the ranks of the Po­lice Ser­vice, in­clud­ing those on con­tract or pre­vi­ous­ly on con­tract, as nom­i­nees to act in the of­fices of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, pend­ing the con­clu­sion of the pro­ce­dure pre­scribed in para­graph 3."

A pre­vi­ous le­gal no­tice, Le­gal No­tice 103 (2009), on­ly al­lowed for a per­son hold­ing or act­ing in the of­fice of deputy com­mis­sion­er to act as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice if the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is va­cant and the ap­point­ment of his suc­ces­sor is pend­ing.

The pre­vi­ous no­tice would have, in the­o­ry, ruled for­mer sub­stan­tive Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith in­el­i­gi­ble to act in the po­si­tion.

At the time le­gal no­tice 183 (2021) was tabled in Par­lia­ment, Grif­fith was on con­tract. His con­tract ex­pired on Au­gust 17, 2021.

President Paula-Mae Weekes

Let­ter from the Pres­i­dent

In an Au­gust 13 let­ter to the for­mer PSC chair­man from Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, the Pres­i­dent con­firmed re­ceipt of a list of nom­i­nees to act as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, but ex­pressed con­cern with para­graph 4 of Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021).

The Pres­i­dent said, “a read­ing of para­graph 4 of the no­tice raised for me im­me­di­ate con­cern, as nowhere with­in its four walls does it set out any role or func­tion, pow­er or au­thor­i­ty in the Pres­i­dent. The Pres­i­dent, be­ing a crea­ture of statute, has no in­her­ent ju­ris­dic­tion and must find all pow­er and au­thor­i­ty with­in some law. I have found none be­yond re­ceiv­ing the rel­e­vant list.”

The Pres­i­dent ex­pressed fur­ther con­cern, sug­gest­ing that she was un­sure whether para­graph 4 im­plied that she ought to se­lect one of the nom­i­nees from the list.

“...The leg­is­la­tion does not pro­vide any guid­ance, pa­ra­me­ters or in­for­ma­tion of which the Pres­i­dent should be seized be­fore mak­ing a se­lec­tion. Pres­i­den­tial dis­cre­tion could hard­ly be ex­er­cised on ‘town say’ or oth­er ar­bi­trary method,” an ex­cerpt of the let­ter read.

Ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Weekes, Le­gal No­tice 103 of 2009, which states in part that–the Com­mis­sion may, as it thinks fit, ap­point to act in the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, a per­son hold­ing or act­ing in the of­fice of the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice–where, (b) the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is va­cant for what­ev­er rea­son and the ap­point­ment of his suc­ces­sor is pend­ing–re­mains good law and was not re­voked by le­gal no­tice 183 (2021).

"I can on­ly con­clude that in his wis­dom the drafts­man of Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021 con­sid­ered it de­sir­able that the Pres­i­dent be in­formed of the list from which the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is se­lect­ed," she said.

The list, for rea­sons yet to be re­vealed, was not sent to Par­lia­ment.

When Al-Rawi spoke to the Sun­day Guardain last week, he ac­knowl­edged that the list ought to have been pre­sent­ed to Par­lia­ment, as stat­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion. He in­sist­ed Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021) was not to blame, as sug­gest­ed by some.

He said, as ev­i­dence of this, "the no­tice is not be­ing chal­lenged be­fore the courts–not even by the Op­po­si­tion."

"What is in court is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion, noth­ing to do with the or­der. If you look at what Mr Nel­son says, Mr Nel­son makes a pass­ing ref­er­ence as to whether the or­der should be viewed in one way or the oth­er," he said.

"We are cer­tain, in the Gov­ern­ment, that this mat­ter needs to be dealt with quick­ly, it is a very im­por­tant is­sue."

Al-Rawi de­fends Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021

Al-Rawi last week de­fend­ed Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021.

Ac­cord­ing to Al-Rawi, con­trary to what is be­ing claimed by some, he did not take it up­on him­self to draft Le­gal No­tice 183 of 2021 but was asked to do so by the PSC.

He said the law was draft­ed by his at­tor­ney, cur­rent Law As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Dou­glas Mendes.

Af­ter be­ing draft­ed, he said, the no­tice was ex­am­ined by three promi­nent at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing Michael Quam­i­na and Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau, al­so sub­ject­ed to fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion by leg­isla­tive re­view, and then ap­proved by Cab­i­net and Par­lia­ment.

"Mr Mendes’ writ­ten opin­ion is that the le­gal no­tice is per­fect­ly law­ful. It re­flects up­on the fact that he draft­ed it and he al­so, nonethe­less, comes to the con­clu­sion that the ap­point­ment (of Grif­fith as act­ing com­mis­sion­er) is in­valid. So, the Gov­ern­ment agrees with Mr Ram­lo­gan’s case and we have said so to the court and we agree the mat­ter should have come to the Par­lia­ment," he said.

Cur­rent­ly, there are three mat­ters be­fore the court in re­la­tion to the PSC se­lec­tion process is­sue.

1. In the first case, Act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Anand Rame­sar is pur­su­ing a law­suit against the PSC over its han­dling of the se­lec­tion of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

2. In the sec­ond case, se­nior coun­sel and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan is rep­re­sent­ing ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj in a con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge against Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment as act­ing com­mis­sion­er.

3. In the third case, Gary Grif­fith is chal­leng­ing the PSC’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend him from the role of the act­ing com­mis­sion­er un­til an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the firearm user’s li­cence sys­tem is com­plet­ed.

The PSC, in a press re­lease dat­ed Au­gust 20, con­firmed the ap­point­ment of Grif­fith as act­ing com­mis­sion­er un­der para­graph 4 of Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021).

Up­on sub­se­quent le­gal ad­vice from se­nior coun­sel Rol­ston Nel­son, how­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter lat­er ac­knowl­edged Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment was im­prop­er.

Ac­cord­ing to the le­gal opin­ion pro­vid­ed by Nel­son, para­graph 4 of Le­gal No­tice 183 (2021) lacked vires, say­ing that even if it had vires, the nom­i­na­tion was not sub­mit­ted to or ap­proved by Par­lia­ment as con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­quired.

Nel­son said, "...In a sig­nif­i­cant de­par­ture from its pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tions, the or­der al­so can­vass­es the ques­tion of act­ing ap­point­ments. Para­graph 4 pro­vides that where the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is va­cant or about to be va­cant, the PSC may sub­mit to the Pres­i­dent a list of suit­ably qual­i­fied per­sons from the ranks of the Po­lice Ser­vice, in­clud­ing con­tract of­fi­cers, as nom­i­nees to act as Com­mis­sion­er or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er pend­ing the con­clu­sion of the se­lec­tion process."

He be­lieved that while the no­tice makes pro­vi­sion for the phase be­tween the ex­pi­ra­tion of a com­mis­sion­er’s terms and the se­lec­tion and ap­point­ment of a new com­mis­sion­er, it does not flow nat­u­ral­ly from Sec­tion 123(2) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Nel­son be­lieved there was no need for pro­vi­sion to be made for the ap­point­ment of an act­ing com­mis­sion­er by way of sub­sidiary leg­is­la­tion giv­en that Sec­tion 123(1) (a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion em­pow­ers the PSC to make such an ap­point­ment.

AG de­nies any­thing sus­pi­cious about re­la­tion­ship with Kawals­ingh

Ques­tions have al­so been raised about Al-Rawi’s re­la­tion­ship with Gary Grif­fith, as well as with for­mer PSC mem­ber, at­tor­ney Roger Kawals­ingh.

Ear­li­er this week, it was re­vealed that Al-Rawi sold a Porsche ve­hi­cle to Kawals­ingh in 2016 with some sug­gest­ing it was a sign of a close re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two, some­thing Al-Rawi de­nied.

"I’ve known Kawals­ingh and most oth­er lawyers for decades. Mr Kawals­ingh, of course, I’ve had in­ter­ac­tions with over the years, but Mr Kawals­ingh al­so very much as­sist­ed in a num­ber of mat­ters for both gov­ern­ments," Al-Rawi said on Thurs­day, deny­ing there was any­thing sus­pi­cious about their re­la­tion­ship.

Kawals­ingh, who re­signed from the PSC on Sep­tem­ber 27, was ap­point­ed to the com­mis­sion in 2019.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has writ­ten to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the act­ing CoP on the sale of the AG's Porsche to Kawals­ingh.

Faris un­der the mi­cro­scope

The PSC is­sue is not the first con­tro­ver­sy the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has found him­self in.

*He has faced heavy crit­i­cism for his fam­i­ly al­leged­ly re­ceiv­ing more than $20 mil­lion in an­nu­al rental fees for prop­er­ties leased by the State.

*In 2016, pho­tographs of Al-Rawi's chil­dren hold­ing high-pow­ered weapons at the shoot­ing range in Camp Cu­mu­to were brought in­to the na­tion­al spot­light by MP for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Al-Rawi sub­se­quent­ly said his fam­i­ly had been in­vit­ed by the army for a "threat as­sess­ment" af­ter he re­ceived death threats af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice in Sep­tem­ber 2015.

In No­vem­ber 2019, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how Al-Rawi's chil­dren were al­lowed to use the gun was al­most at a close. How­ev­er, days lat­er Grif­fith said the probe had hit a bump in the road due to a lack of co­op­er­a­tion from the TTDF.

*In March 2021, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with Al-Rawi for not wear­ing a face mask dur­ing a live stream event, Vibes with Voicey, stat­ing peo­ple in lead­er­ship po­si­tions must act re­spon­si­bly. Al-Rawi lat­er apol­o­gised for his ac­tion, ad­mit­ting that he should have act­ed bet­ter.

*In June 2021, Al-Rawi promised the "moth­er of all Car­ni­vals" in 2022 dur­ing a Twit­ter Spaces con­ver­sa­tion with en­ter­tain­ers as the Gov­ern­ment ramps up its vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve to come out of the pan­dem­ic. Re­spond­ing to Al-Rawi's pub­lic state­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said it was too ear­ly to dis­cuss Car­ni­val 2022, as the first hur­dle they had to cross was re­open­ing schools.

In re­sponse to the mount­ing pres­sure on Al-Rawi from the PSC is­sue, the ex­ec­u­tive of the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy of the PNM con­demned, what they called, un­war­rant­ed and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed at­tacks against its MP.

In a press re­lease, is­sued on Fri­day, the ex­ec­u­tive said, "The Ho­n­ourable Faris Al-Rawi, in his ca­pac­i­ty as the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go has worked tire­less­ly to­wards achiev­ing a safe, just and bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go by pi­lot­ing much-need­ed leg­is­la­tion be­fore the Par­lia­ment."

KEITH ROWLEY

Un­der pres­sure with­in the PNM

Al-Rawi is al­so un­der pres­sure from forces with­in the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment.

Sun­day Guardian asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al whether he be­lieved there was sub­stance to claims that the Le­gal No­tice is­sue was be­ing used by some peo­ple with­in the par­ty to paint him in a neg­a­tive light, but he did not an­swer.

He, how­ev­er, pledged his loy­al­ty to the par­ty and the Prime Min­is­ter.

A source close to the Gov­ern­ment said there seems to be a fight for lead­er­ship with­in the par­ty that is caus­ing is­sues. They said that a small group with­in the Cab­i­net "with its own agen­da" was work­ing to un­der­mine Al-Rawi.

A cab­i­net source sug­gest­ed like­wise, be­liev­ing that a group of cab­i­net mem­bers see Al-Rawi as a threat to their as­pi­ra­tions of climb­ing the lead­er­ship ranks when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley even­tu­al­ly steps down as par­ty leader.

They sug­gest­ed that there may be par­ty mem­bers who see the com­plex PSC saga as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to put the at­tor­ney gen­er­al un­der pres­sure. One par­ty in­sid­er said that the "PNM had no in­ten­tion of get­tingf rid of Al-Rawi be­cause the par­ty stands to lose more if they get rid of him."

Fol­low­ing the PNM’s gen­er­al elec­tion suc­cess in Au­gust 2020, the Prime Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that he would not be lead­ing the par­ty in­to the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

"Ladies and gen­tle­man, this can eas­i­ly be my last term in pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am not one of those politi­cians who be­lieve that when you come in­to of­fice you should go out feet first. I have places to go and peo­ple to see," Dr Row­ley said in his vic­to­ry speech.

"But more im­por­tant­ly, I have a com­mit­ment to en­sure that this is a pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion in the PNM."

With in­ter­nal elec­tions ex­pect­ed in 2022, there has been no sub­se­quent con­fir­ma­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter’s plans to step down as par­ty leader. He re­cent­ly stat­ed, though, that there was no va­can­cy for lead­er­ship of the par­ty. How­ev­er, par­ty in­sid­ers be­lieve that Row­ley will not be con­test­ing the next lead­er­ship elec­tion.