Michelle Loubon

Diego Mar­tin West MP Colm Im­bert says Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie was ap­point­ed un­der for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Bridgid An­nisette-George's watch and not the oth­er for­mer AG John Je­re­mie. Im­bert made this com­ment dur­ing his par­lia­men­tary con­tri­bu­tion yes­ter­day. "Now, the fact of the mat­ter is, it was not John Je­re­mie who was the at­tor­ney gen­er­al when the Ho­n­ourable Ivor Archie was ap­point­ed Chief Jus­tice of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go...It was Bridgid An­nisette-George," he said. He not­ed there were no spe­cial arrange­ments for Archie. "Now, the mem­ber for St Joseph (Her­bert Vol­ney) in­sin­u­at­ed the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, un­der the PNM, had made spe­cial arrange­ments for the present chief jus­tice," he said.

He al­so said Je­re­mie ex­er­cised his op­tion in favour of "su­per­grade quar­ters," in­stead of a hous­ing al­lowance. Ze­ro­ing on the ques­tion of favours, Im­bert al­so said the Salaries' Re­view Com­mis­sion had sug­gest­ed, and Par­lia­ment has ap­proved, that all sit­ting chief jus­tices were en­ti­tled ei­ther to a hous­ing al­lowance or to su­per­grade quar­ters. "Pre­vi­ous chief jus­tices–the one im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore Archie, and the one be­fore–that is Sat Shar­ma; and the one be­fore, Michael de la Bastide, they opt­ed to oc­cu­py their per­son­al pri­vate res­i­dence and re­ceived the hous­ing al­lowance. It was $10,000 or $14,000." He said there was the choice be­tween "su­per­grade quar­ters" or a hous­ing al­lowance.

"It was a choice...You could re­quest su­per­grade quar­ters or you could opt to re­ceive the hous­ing al­lowance," Im­bert said. "So if an in­com­ing chief jus­tice de­cides he wish­es to ex­er­cise the op­tion of su­per­grade quar­ters, then it should not be a prob­lem." "And he (Vol­ney) in­sin­u­at­ed be­cause of this favour, which was a lux­u­ri­ous house some­where in Good­wood Park, the present chief jus­tice is or was be­hold­en to the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al; was his pup­pet, more or less." He al­so said Vol­ney in­sin­u­at­ed for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie had done a hous­ing favour for the "sit­ting priest," Chief Jus­tice Archie.

Im­bert said Vol­ney had re­ferred to Je­re­mie "in a clever way."

"He re­ferred to the Chief Jus­tice as the "ex­alt­ed one," but every­body knew," he said. "You do not have to be a rock­et sci­en­tist...We know who you are talk­ing about. "I know you had your prob­lems, but do not use this Par­lia­ment and do not abuse par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to set­tle some old score from your pre­vi­ous em­ploy­ment. "I am just ap­peal­ing to you. You can do bet­ter than that. Do not use this Par­lia­ment to set­tle some grudge you may have had in your pre­vi­ous em­ploy­ment." Im­bert said he was aware Je­re­mie and Vol­ney nev­er got along. But he al­so knew the con­duct of a judge should not be ques­tioned–even on a sub­stan­tive mo­tion–in Par­lia­ment.