Ken Ali

At age 37, Anand Ram­lo­gan has be­come Trinidad and To­ba­go's youngest At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in a gen­er­a­tion. Ram­lo­gan sat down yes­ter­day for a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian.

Q: How does it feel to be ap­point­ed, at such a young age, as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al?

A:I am ex­cit­ed and ready to serve. Age should nev­er be a fac­tor in de­ter­min­ing one's mer­it and abil­i­ty for a job. Young peo­ple are blamed for many prob­lems in our so­ci­ety, but, iron­i­cal­ly, are not al­ways giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve be­cause of their age. This ap­point­ment should send a mes­sage to the youths of our coun­try that any­thing is pos­si­ble un­der this new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

What are your pri­or­i­ties?

My pri­or­i­ties are im­prov­ing the pace and qual­i­ty of jus­tice, restor­ing trans­paren­cy and in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life, bring­ing those who vi­o­lat­ed the law to jus­tice, and en­sur­ing that the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and fair­ness are the hall­marks of our le­gal sys­tem. The courts are there to serve the peo­ple, and not vice ver­sa.

How is your job de­fined, in light of the es­tab­lish­ment of a Min­istry of Jus­tice?

There are di­vi­sions of the le­gal arm of the ex­ec­u­tive in­to three sep­a­rate min­istries, with em­pha­sis on the im­por­tance of this as­pect of gov­er­nance. It sim­pli­fies the port­fo­lios and is con­ducive to a ded­i­cat­ed and fo­cused ap­proach, with clear­ly-de­fined ob­jec­tives, and makes each min­istry more man­age­able.

How do you ra­tio­nalise the set­ting up of a Min­istry of Jus­tice, in light of ear­li­er op­po­si­tion by the UNC to such a min­istry?

Those con­cerns were linked to a pro­posed new con­sti­tu­tion which the Chief Jus­tice ex­pressed alarm about dur­ing a speech at the open­ing of a law term. Those con­cerns are not an is­sue for this ad­min­is­tra­tion, be­cause we were and re­main op­posed to those trou­bling pro­pos­als for re­form. The lines of de­mar­ca­tion in the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers must be clar­i­fied, re­in­forced and re­spect­ed, and not blurred and weak­ened.

The ju­di­cia­ry must re­main strong and in­de­pen­dent to keep the gov­ern­ment in check.

What re­spons­es have you had from mem­bers of your pro­fes­sion to your ap­point­ment?

The re­spons­es have been over­whelm­ing, with con­grat­u­la­tions pour­ing in. I al­so re­ceived con­grat­u­la­tions from col­leagues across the Caribbean, many of whom were my class­mates in Cave Hill cam­pus and now oc­cu­py se­nior po­si­tions in their re­spec­tive ter­ri­to­ries. Many mem­bers of the British Bar who worked with me at the Privy Coun­cil have al­so of­fered their con­grat­u­la­tions and sup­port.

What is to be­come of your pri­vate prac­tice?

I will miss be­ing an ad­vo­cate in the court, but I recog­nised the lim­i­ta­tions of such a role and I am hap­py to be on the oth­er side of the fence to try and lev­el the play­ing field. When I did the Ma­ha Sab­ha ra­dio li­cence case, the High Court had ruled the gov­ern­ment guilty of dis­crim­i­na­tion, but re­fused to or­der the State to grant the Ma­ha Sab­ha a ra­dio li­cence. The Gov­ern­ment did not of­fer the li­cence un­til it was or­dered to do so by the Privy Coun­cil.

This is a weak­ness in our sys­tem of gov­er­nance, be­cause the state should re­spond to such find­ings by our courts in a proac­tive man­ner to pre­serve the rule of law and avoid em­bar­rass­ment. As At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, I would de­fend the rights of the state, but would be guid­ed by what is fair, just and right and make ap­pro­pri­ate con­ces­sions when nec­es­sary in the in­ter­est of equal­i­ty and fair­ness. The role of the State is too ad­ver­sar­i­al some­times, and it is not an or­di­nary lit­i­gant in ad­ver­sar­i­al com­bat against an or­di­nary cit­i­zen with lit­tle or no re­sources.

Some mut­ed fears have been ex­pressed about a pos­si­ble witch-hunt. How do you re­spond?

Those who vi­o­lat­ed the law should be ex­treme­ly wor­ried, and have every cause for con­cern, but the in­no­cent shall have noth­ing to fear and should lose no sleep.

You were an ad­vo­cate for so­cial jus­tice; would you main­tain that com­mit­ment?

The over­rid­ing ob­jec­tive must be what is fair, just and right, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly what is legal­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly cor­rect. In my ex­pe­ri­ence, the State some­times lost sight of the fact that it was deal­ing with hu­man be­ings with feel­ings and emo­tions and or­di­nary lives. A more com­pas­sion­ate and car­ing ap­proach is need­ed that takes in­to ac­count the anx­i­ety, dis­tress and suf­fer­ing of an ag­griev­ed cit­i­zen when deal­ing with le­gal claims against the State and its agen­cies. A vic­tim of dis­crim­i­na­tion or po­lice bru­tal­i­ty, for ex­am­ple, un­der­goes fur­ther hu­mil­i­a­tion and dis­tress when the State de­fends the in­de­fen­si­ble.

The vic­tim al­so suf­fers when the State prac­tis­es lit­i­ga­tion by am­bush or with­holds rel­e­vant ev­i­dence that can vin­di­cate the ag­griev­ed cit­i­zen's claim of in­jus­tice. A case in point would be the Ma­ha Sab­ha ra­dio li­cence case, when the Privy Coun­cil con­demned the State for twice mis­lead­ing the Court of Ap­peal by with­hold­ing vi­tal in­for­ma­tion from its own courts about the true sta­tus of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

What is to be­come of your pri­vate prac­tice?

I have briefed out many of my mat­ters; re­ferred some clients else­where, and hand­ed over the firm to Miss Cindy Bhag­wan­deen, who would man­age it with­out my in­volve­ment. Clients have noth­ing to fear, be­cause prop­er arrange­ments were made for all mat­ters.�

What are the le­gal cas­es you have most cher­ished?

I rel­ished the chal­lenge of the bat­tle be­tween David and Go­liath, mean­ing the or­di­nary man and the State, and saw my­self as the sling­shot with the peb­ble of law in the hand of David. My tar­get re­mains the same, but I have more peb­bles in my sling­shot. Among the many mem­o­rable mo­ments in my ca­reer is the joy­ous re­ac­tion of the Rasta­far­i­an com­mu­ni­ty when I got the over­turn­ing by the pris­ons au­thor­i­ties of the prac­tice of cut­ting their dread­locks and the re­fusal to feed them a veg­e­tar­i­an di­et.

The court ruled that this vi­o­lat­ed their right to re­li­gious be­lief; they felt a sense of iden­ti­ty.�I still drink free co­conut wa­ter at sev­er­al venues be­cause of that vic­to­ry. I al­so re­call the re­stric­tions on the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty when I sued the State for George Daniel about lack of wheel­chair ac­cess to the Hall of Jus­tice. I al­so en­joy the grat­i­tude of Mar­lene Coudray, De­vant Ma­haraj and oth­ers for the le­gal vic­to­ries we ac­com­plished.

There was a sym­bol­ic hand­ing over of of­fice from the for­mer to cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter. Can we an­tic­i­pate the same with re­spect to the of­fice of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al?

Yes, I have arranged an of­fi­cial hand­ing over with Mr (John) Je­re­mie be­fore I of­fi­cial­ly as­sume du­ties on Tues­day at Ca­bildeo Cham­bers.

What are your thoughts on the new Cab­i­net?

It's the right blend of ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence that re­flects the di­ver­si­ty of our so­ci­ety. Min­is­ters are qual­i­fied and ready to gov­ern, but we must re­port to the peo­ple, be­cause they are the ones who would do our per­for­mance ap­praisal in five years' time.

Some peo­ple are draw­ing par­al­lels with a pre­de­ces­sor in of­fice, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj...

Ramesh blazed a trail in the law at a time when most lawyers chose to re­main with­in their com­fort zone. I re­spect his ac­com­plish­ments and, in some ways, built on the ju­rispru­dence cre­at­ed by some of his work.

I'm al­ways will­ing to con­sid­er what my se­nior col­leagues in the le­gal pro­fes­sion say about our gov­er­nance.

What are your views on the lead­er­ship, so far, of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar?

Her em­pha­sis on the peo­ple un­der­scores the philo­soph­i­cal shift in gov­er­nance. When a flood vic­tim who lost every­thing can smile with joy be­cause her Prime Min­is­ter vis­it­ed her home, the na­tion ex­hales with even greater an­tic­i­pa­tion, be­cause the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship is walk­ing the talk. We are here to serve the peo­ple, not vice ver­sa.

Mr Man­ning, for ex­am­ple, nev­er paid a sin­gle vis­it dur­ing his tenure to the home of a mur­der or kid­nap vic­tim. That is why his emp­ty slo­gan, "We Care," didn't work. We care and shall demon­strate this in our words, ac­tion and deeds.

Your ac­tive so­cial life, es­pe­cial­ly in South Trinidad, is well-known. How would this change?

At the mo­ment, I am some­what over­whelmed by the im­me­di­ate per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion of my life. The ram­i­fi­ca­tions of this ap­point­ment are wide-rang­ing and far-reach­ing, and I am deal­ing with the me­chan­ics of it on a dai­ly ba­sis. My heart, how­ev­er, re­mains in the South and my roots run too deep for me to to­tal­ly re­move my­self from San Fer­nan­do.