In­dar­jit Seu­raj

The Ju­di­cia­ry of T&T is call­ing for the de­struc­tion of all il­le­gal­ly ob­tained ma­te­r­i­al gath­ered by the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA). The ju­di­cia­ry broke its si­lence on the is­sue yes­ter­day, six days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rev­e­la­tion in Par­lia­ment of il­le­gal wire­tap­ping by the agency of phone and e-mails of promi­nent cit­i­zens. The ju­di­cia­ry said in a state­ment: "We would al­so urge the ex­ec­u­tive to take steps to en­sure the de­struc­tion of all il­le­gal­ly ob­tained ma­te­r­i­al un­der the su­per­vi­sion of an in­de­pen­dent third par­ty."

Al­so con­demn­ing the SIA's wire­tap­ping ac­tiv­i­ties yes­ter­day was the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, which de­scribed it as an at­tack on the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry. "We note with fur­ther dis­may that it was stat­ed that judges were among those be­ing spied up­on. This con­sti­tutes an at­tack on the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry," stat­ed Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Daly, SC, in a re­lease yes­ter­day. The re­lease from the ju­di­cia­ry added: "In the case of the ju­di­cia­ry, the in­evitable con­se­quence would be an un­der­min­ing of its in­de­pen­dence and the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice."

The ju­di­cia­ry not­ed while judges were sub­ject to vet­ting from law­ful­ly con­sti­tut­ed agen­cies, there should be no il­le­gal in­tru­sions. "What can­not be tol­er­at­ed is any ar­bi­trary in­tru­sion in­to any­one's pri­vate af­fairs with no le­gal or leg­isla­tive foun­da­tion," it said. The ju­di­cia­ry said based on the sweep of the SIA, "one is dri­ven to the con­clu­sion that the on­ly ra­tio­nal ex­pla­na­tion for some of the wire­tap­ping is that it was con­duct­ed with the hope of ac­quir­ing neg­a­tive per­son­al in­for­ma­tion that might be used as lever­age."

Daly, mean­time, said the al­leged "spy­ing" con­sti­tut­ed a vi­o­la­tion of the fun­da­men­tal rights of cit­i­zens and was a di­rect at­tack on the Con­sti­tu­tion. He said the sur­veil­lance was il­le­gal as the SIA had no le­gal au­thor­i­ty. He not­ed that the Bill, which would be placed be­fore Par­lia­ment to­day to make such phone sur­veil­lance le­gal, had se­ri­ous de­fi­cien­cies. Among them, he said, was a pro­vi­sion which would al­low sur­veil­lance to be car­ried out "at the be­hest" of the min­is­ter. Daly said that would be to the detri­ment of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.