Fran­cis Joseph

Em­bat­tled At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie wants to meet with the Law As­so­ci­a­tion to dis­cuss the events over the last month, which led to a no-con­fi­dence vote against him, and his of­fer of res­ig­na­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

Mar­tin Daly, SC, pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, told the T&T Guardian last night that he re­ceived a call from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, ask­ing for a meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion. "I told the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al that the as­so­ci­a­tion would meet with him on a date con­ve­nient to all sides," Daly said.

He said he would be tak­ing along sev­er­al mem­bers of the coun­cil to meet with the AG. But he could not say what the as­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al would dis­cuss. Sev­er­al lawyers said the new de­vel­op­ment was a step in the right di­rec­tion and this could bring about a heal­ing with­in the jus­tice sys­tem. The T&T Guardian was in­formed that Je­re­mie wants to ex­tend the olive branch to the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.

Af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of let­ters in the me­dia to­wards the end of May be­tween Je­re­mie and then Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son, a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing of the as­so­ci­a­tion was called on Ju­ly 1. By a vote of 106 to 82, mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion passed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Je­re­mie, but they did not call on him to re­sign. In light of the no-con­fi­dence vote, Je­re­mie of­fered his res­ig­na­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter and flew off to Lon­don "to tie up loose ends."

Je­re­mie had to pack up and re­turn to Trinidad to be­come AG for a sec­ond time, leav­ing be­hind his post of T&T High Com­mis­sion­er to the UK. On the AG's re­turn last week­end, Man­ning spoke with Je­re­mie, fol­low­ing which he stat­ed that he was not ac­cept­ing the res­ig­na­tion. He said the spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing was po­lit­i­cal­ly-mo­ti­vat­ed.

The coun­cil of the as­so­ci­a­tion met on Tues­day to dis­cuss the re­fusal of the Prime Min­is­ter to ac­cept Je­re­mie's res­ig­na­tion of­fi­cer. The as­so­ci­a­tion is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day, say­ing that the choice of an AG was en­tire­ly with­in the dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The state­ment said: "How­ev­er, it re­jects the slur and dis­re­spect that pro­ceed­ings of its prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing of Ju­ly 1, 2009, were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed." Daly, who signed the state­ment, said: "The as­so­ci­a­tion has al­ready dealt with the spu­ri­ous at­tacks on the le­git­i­ma­cy of the ac­tiv­i­ties of its mem­bers.

"What con­cerns us deeply are the reper­cus­sions for the na­tion of the at­ti­tudes of in­tol­er­ance that are be­ing dis­played," he added. Daly said the as­so­ci­a­tion was de­ter­mined to main­tain high­er ground and to act in the best in­ter­ests of its mem­bers and the pub­lic.

"We are not in­tim­i­dat­ed and will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed in­to si­lence on is­sues of pub­lic con­cern with a le­gal core, such as the ap­point­ment and role of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions...Our voice will be res­olute and firm on any is­sues in which the as­so­ci­a­tion has a le­git­i­mate in­ter­est," he said.

Hen­der­son was el­e­vat­ed to the High Court in Jan­u­ary this year. Car­la Brown-An­toine, the deputy DPP, has been act­ing in the post since then. There are sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple act­ing in the posts of So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, Chief State So­lic­i­tor, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel.