RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, who de­nied last year that le­gal fees had been paid to his for­mer cham­bers, is ex­pect­ed to be tak­en be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for al­leged­ly mis­lead­ing the Par­lia­ment.

This was re­vealed by Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Sen­a­tor Wade Mark fol­low­ing the Sun­day Guardian’s ex­pose of the Gov­ern­ment’s hefty le­gal bill, which has crossed the one bil­lion dol­lar mark with crit­i­cal fig­ures yet to come in from the lu­cra­tive Min­istries of Fi­nance and En­er­gy. 

Ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj, in a se­ries of Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion ap­pli­ca­tions sent to Gov­ern­ment min­istries, ob­tained the da­ta which re­vealed be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2015 to March 3, 2023, a to­tal of $1,116,405,411.34 was paid out to 109 at­tor­neys, some of whom will be be­stowed the ti­tle of Se­nior Coun­sel next week. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day af­ter­noon, Mark said on 29 No­vem­ber 2022, Ar­mour was asked in the Sen­ate whether his for­mer law cham­bers, Marie de Vere cham­bers, had been paid any le­gal fees dur­ing the pe­ri­od 19 June 2021 to 31 March 2022. Ar­mour re­spond­ed that no fees had been paid to his for­mer cham­bers.

How­ev­er, the doc­u­ments sup­plied to Ma­haraj un­der the FOIA show dur­ing the pe­ri­od June 19, 2021 to 30 Sep­tem­ber 2021, Ar­mour, who was head of Marie de Vere cham­bers re­ceived $1.8 mil­lion, while his ju­niors in the same cham­bers, Raphael Ajod­hia and Vanes­sa Gopaul,re­ceived $1.685 mil­lion and $1.818 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly. 

Fur­ther pay­ments were al­so made dur­ing the pe­ri­od 1 Oc­to­ber 2021 to 30th Sep­tem­ber 2022 but it is im­pos­si­ble to know from the ag­gre­gate fig­ure how much of that mon­ey would have been paid dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to March 2022.

Mark said: “AG Ar­mour in­di­cat­ed that no le­gal fees were paid to his Cham­ber but when we ex­am­ined the state­ment that was re­leased to Ravi Bal­go­b­in, we re­alised there are three in­di­vid­u­als who worked by that Cham­ber head­ed by Ar­mour. This in­for­ma­tion re­veals that these peo­ple re­ceived monies from the Gov­ern­ment. The Op­po­si­tion is now re­view­ing the doc­u­ments and we will have to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er re­fer­ring AG Ar­mour to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for mis­lead­ing the Par­lia­ment.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Ar­mour re­quest­ing com­ment for a sec­ond day but there was no re­sponse. 

How­ev­er, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi told Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day that the fees were paid for the pe­ri­od be­fore Ar­mour as­sumed of­fice.

Mean­while, con­cerns are al­so be­ing raised as to why Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young failed to make dis­clo­sures when their le­gal ad­vi­sor Ar­mour ca­pit­u­lat­ed to the FOIA and sup­plied the da­ta. 

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter Im­bert ask­ing for an ex­pla­na­tion but he did not re­spond or an­swer calls.

Im­bert re­sponds in af­fi­davit

In an af­fi­davit filed on April 19, 2023, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Im­bert ex­plained why the dis­clo­sure of le­gal fees was not made.

Im­bert ex­plained: “The min­istry has been mak­ing ef­forts to gath­er and col­late in­for­ma­tion though, as men­tioned above, the claimant has no right or en­ti­tle­ment to the same and there are At­tor­neys-as-Law who ob­ject to their per­son­al and pri­vate in­for­ma­tion be­ing dis­closed. Ef­forts to do so have been chal­leng­ing be­cause of the num­ber of pub­lic au­thor­i­ties from which the in­for­ma­tion has to be ob­tained and col­lat­ed with ac­cu­ra­cy. A num­ber of At­tor­neys-at-Law, in­clud­ing se­nior at­tor­neys, re­spond­ed to the min­istry in re­la­tion to the First Re­quest and have ob­ject­ed to the dis­clo­sure of their per­son­al in­for­ma­tion for var­i­ous rea­sons in­clud­ing be­ing brought to the at­ten­tion of crim­i­nal el­e­ments, be­com­ing a tar­get for kid­nap­ping or oth­er ban­dit­ry and con­flict with the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act.”

 How­ev­er, in a sim­i­lar FOIA case bought by Denyse Renne against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh ruled that “No le­gal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege can at­tach to pro­vid­ing the names of at­tor­neys en­gaged and the cost of such en­gage­ments. At the end of the day, pub­lic funds have been used to pay at­tor­neys. It is a le­git­i­mate re­quest that the claimant has made. Le­gal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege at­tach­es to com­mu­ni­ca­tions made for the pur­pose of ob­tain­ing le­gal ad­vice. There is no priv­i­lege in a name or the fees paid with pub­lic funds. I note, how­ev­er, that no date was pro­vid­ed so this re­quest will be lim­it­ed to the pe­ri­od of the oth­er re­quests from Au­gust 2018 to the date of the re­quest.” 

Mark said the fact that Ar­mour’s Cab­i­net col­leagues have tak­en con­flict­ing po­si­tions on the is­sue of dis­clo­sure of le­gal fees may have to be re­solved by the courts as Ma­haraj has tak­en both min­is­ters to court over their fail­ure to dis­close the le­gal fees paid by their min­istries.