Tuesday February 9th, 2010
- Last update:13 hours 43 min ago
Jeremie admits to outsourcing of legal work
Published: 29 Sep 2009
A practice has developed “over the last couple years” where some ministries have “outsourced” drafting of their legislation to private legal firms, before it is redrafted by the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Attorney General John Jeremie confirmed yesterday. UNC Senator Wade Mark elicited the information from Jeremie during Mark’s questioning of Jeremie on the issue during yesterday’s Senate sitting.
Replying to Mark’s first question on the issue—which involved whether Jeremie’s ministry had hired private legal drafting over 2008 to May 2009, Jeremie said, “The Attorney General has not hired any private law firm or individual or consultant to perform any legal drafting duties over January 2008 to May 2009.” Jeremie said all legislative bills presented to Parliament were drafted by the office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel (CPC).
Jeremie added: “Some draft legislation may emanate from other ministries, but would necessarily be redrafted by the Chief Parliamentary Counsel.” Jeremie listed 100 pieces of legislation which were drafted by the CPC over 2007 and 2009. Mark then asked Jeremie if he was aware of any private legal firms being involved in the drafting process and if so, whether the CPC was called upon to redraft those pieces.
Jeremie then confirmed: “Yes, a practice has developed by virtue of which several ministries outsource their preliminary drafting work. That is a relatively recent practice. The extent to which the CPC has to redraft the bills and the CPC’s involvement is not clear. “In some instances it might be grammatical errors, it may be a question of style and in some cases it may be a question of substance.
Refund of fees
Refund of fees warranted?
The extent to which the CPC has to redraft the bills and the CPC’s involvement is not clear. "In some instances it might be grammatical errors, it may be a question of style"...
If this outsourcing is to continue, may I respectfully suggest:
a) more training of the 'draftsmen' to know the style required; and
b) TT$1,000 refunded for each grammatical error found, which is totally unexcuseable at this level of the profession.
La Diva
Mr. AG you sir can bob and
Mr. AG you sir can bob and weave as much as you want, but this time you will not cover up the real issue, It will haunt you till the day you retire or Lock up Manning and Hart!
I Ryan4Party will enjoy looking on at you create your own demise. Let’s see how brilliant you are sir. I think you will be a good lesson for my kids, the things they should not do in their careers.
Outsourcing of Legal
Outsourcing of Legal Work.
Mr. John Jeremie, you learned gentleman, do you think that you can be so kind as to answer some questions for me. You see I am an average citizen, lacking in knowledge of the inner workings of our
gov't.
Why is it necessary to outsource this legal work?
How do we select the firms to do this work, and whose approval is necessary to seal the deal?
Do we provide specifications for these firms to comply with?
Or do we leave it up to them to start from scratch - brain-storming to end product - draft legislation.
It seems that there is a necessity for our Public Servants to have to re-do the work we already paid for. Does this not show that we are paying for a jobs we are not getting done according to our demands?
Do we still pay these firms for work that has not complied with our rigid guidelines/specifications?
If we do, why do we do so?
For work that our Public Servants have to to re-do, or correct, do we then seek a rebate? If not why not?
These are only some of my questions. But I would like answers on these for the time being.
I also agree with the suggestion put forward by La Diva.
I may be ill informed, but I believe that we have been told that our Public Servants are not the best berries in the bunch.
Mr. Jeremie, Sir, I await your response. Please do educate me.
....outsourcing???....that's
....outsourcing???....that's not the word...bribery is more apt...got to keep the Israels et al happy.....
Outsourcing of legal work is
Outsourcing of legal work is done worldwide by companies, and govt agencies (including law,civil and criminal, enforcement agencies). Many a judge also seeks outside expert opinion on subject matter beyond his normal purview. So what is the fuss? There should be an intelligent litmus test for all those seeking elected office (including for judges and magistrates as well). This testing while definitely needed in Trinidad (for the likes of Mark Wade, et al) is also needed worldwide as here in the US we have more than our share of ill-informed and undereducated senators and representatives. Don S. NY