Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day, that com­ments made by Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney were in "no way the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter or the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing its per­cep­tion, at­ti­tude or pol­i­cy con­cern­ing the ju­di­cial arm of the State and in­deed, the Hon­or­able Chief Jus­tice him­self." The PM's state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter al­so stat­ed that Vol­ney's com­ments dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Thurs­day were "un­for­tu­nate, and un­nec­es­sary."

Fol­low­ing is the PM's state­ment:

"That sev­er­al mem­bers of her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion have had a past his­to­ry in pol­i­tics and so­cial ac­tivism as de­fend­ers and up­hold­ers of the rule of law and the in­de­pen­dence and sep­a­ra­tions of all the time ho­n­oured Es­tates of a De­mo­c­ra­t­ic State as Trinidad and To­ba­go. In fact, as in­di­vid­ual pro­fes­sion­als in the le­gal and oth­er spheres, pub­licly elect­ed par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the cit­i­zens over the past ten years and po­lit­i­cal and so­cial ac­tivists, sev­er­al mem­bers of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment and Cab­i­net, in­clud­ing the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter her­self, of­ten, through pub­lic state­ments and le­gal ac­tion, came to the staunch de­fence of the rule of law and were strong pro­po­nents of the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the try­ing times of the his­toric, un­for­tu­nate and il­le­gal move of the for­mer Patrick Man­ning PNM regime to im­peach the for­mer chief jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma.

It is in this con­text that the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar wish­es to in­di­cate that she con­sid­ers the state­ments made by Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 16th, 2010, as un­for­tu­nate, and un­nec­es­sary but may have been made in the con­text of a first time bud­get de­bate for the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter and there­fore, may have been sim­ply over-en­thu­si­as­tic. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter wish­es to fur­ther re­in­force the fact that the views ex­pressed by Min­is­ter Vol­ney re­flect his per­son­al opin­ion and in NO WAY is the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter or the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing its per­cep­tion, at­ti­tude or pol­i­cy con­cern­ing the ju­di­cial arm of the State and in­deed, the Hon­or­able Chief Jus­tice him­self.

The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter wish­es to note that in Min­is­ter Vol­ney's con­tri­bu­tion, he had in fact stat­ed his min­istry's in­tent to con­sult with the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice on mat­ters con­cern­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, there­by recog­nis­ing him­self the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry and the ne­ces­si­ty for his min­istry to give this body its full co­op­er­a­tion and due re­spect. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter fur­ther wish­es to em­pha­sis that her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment un­der­stands the im­por­tance and val­ue of a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the ju­di­cia­ry to im­prove the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice for the ben­e­fit and greater good of all our cit­i­zens and our so­ci­ety. To this end, the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to ful­fill­ing its oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing ap­pro­pri­ate hous­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion for the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice and mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry.

The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter is thus con­fi­dent that mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry will recog­nise these re­al­i­ties in their in­fi­nite wis­dom and ma­tu­ri­ty, and?en­sure a con­tin­ued re­cep­tive, cor­dial and pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the ju­di­cia­ry."