Cou­va South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Op­po­si­tion Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Labour, Rudy In­dars­ingh has once again called on Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to clear the air re­gard­ing the non-re­new­al of the con­tract of for­mer pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court, Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix. He is al­so seek­ing an­swers about the Pres­i­dent’s hus­band—Ker­wyn Gar­cia—and the num­ber of State briefs he has been giv­en and an al­leged pos­si­ble con­flict of in­ter­est in a mat­ter Gar­cia has be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court. The unions made this claim, with­out any ev­i­dence or doc­u­men­ta­tion to sup­port it.

Thomas-Fe­lix who was in Gene­va, Switzer­land, was re­port­ed­ly called by Her Ex­cel­len­cy last week Mon­day, days be­fore her con­tract was due to ex­pire.

Con­cerns were raised by the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) even af­ter Heather Seale was ap­point­ed to the post of In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent.

Calls by the union bod­ies for an­swers have not been ad­dressed by Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, MP In­dars­ingh said that is not good enough and ques­tioned whether nepo­tism and favouritism are at play.

He asked whether a se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter spoke out ve­he­ment­ly against Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix’s con­tract re­new­al and if this oc­curred, whether it played any role in Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s de­ci­sion.

“I am ad­vised through word on the ground that these things played a role in the non-re­new­al of the con­tract.”

In­dars­ingh stressed that the In­dus­tri­al Court and the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of the Court should re­main in­de­pen­dent and there­fore any spec­u­la­tion should be de­bunked.

“I think that Her Ex­cel­len­cy should speak to the coun­try as it re­lates to the cir­cum­stances which led to the non-re­new­al of the con­tract which fa­cil­i­tat­ed Miss Heather Seale to be ap­point­ed as the pres­i­dent of the (In­dus­tri­al) Court,” he said.

He al­so called for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty re­lat­ing to the is­sue of the State briefs for her hus­band, Ker­wyn Gar­cia.

Last week, JTUM al­leged that a pos­si­ble con­flict of in­ter­est sur­round­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s hus­band Ker­wyn Gar­cia’s in­volve­ment in a case be­fore the court may have been the rea­son for Thomas-Fe­lix’s re­moval.

“If this is not cleared up, we will con­tin­ue to ask the ques­tion about this tan­gled web that is be­ing weaved at this point in time,” In­dars­ingh said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions by Guardian Me­dia re­vealed that Gar­cia has been hired by sev­er­al State en­ter­pris­es with the bulk of his earn­ings com­ing from the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

Be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2015 and March 3, 2023, ac­cord­ing to Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) doc­u­ments, Gar­cia re­ceived $14.25 mil­lion in le­gal briefs from the State.

Nei­ther Gar­cia nor Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo have re­spond­ed to re­quests for com­ment on the is­sues raised.

Last Fri­day, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) al­so weighed in on the ap­point­ment of the In­dus­tri­al Court Pres­i­dent call­ing for changes to be made to the process of reap­point­ing judges there.

In its state­ment, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion first con­grat­u­lat­ed Heather Seale on her ap­point­ment as the new pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court.

The LATT al­so record­ed its pro­found grat­i­tude to out­go­ing pres­i­dent Thomas-Fe­lix for her yeo­man ser­vice to the coun­try.

How­ev­er, LATT al­so echoed the con­cerns ex­pressed by some mem­bers of the pub­lic re­gard­ing the sys­tem of ap­point­ment and re-ap­point­ment of judges of the court.