Renu­ka Singh

Two gov­ern­ment min­is­ters are among the four lawyers tipped to re­place At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan should his ap­point­ment be re­voked to­mor­row. Apart from Ram­lo­gan, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) head David West could al­so see his ap­point­ment re­voked. Cab­i­net in­sid­ers said the Prime Min­is­ter was "not aware" that he was a key wit­ness in a civ­il mat­ter in­volv­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the time of his ap­point­ment to the PCA.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to make a state­ment at 4 pm to­mor­row at her of­fice in St Clair. While she did not in­di­cate what the top­ic of her state­ment would be, there is spec­u­la­tion that fol­low­ing mas­sive ex­ter­nal pres­sure to re­move Ram­lo­gan, she would ad­dress that is­sue.

The Sun­day Guardian was in­formed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar held heat­ed talks with key gov­ern­ment min­is­ters yes­ter­day, look­ing for a way to ad­dress both the in­ter­nal Cab­i­net ten­sion and the ex­ter­nal pres­sure from the pub­lic to re­move Ram­lo­gan from of­fice.The four short­list­ed can­di­dates dis­cussed at closed door meet­ings yes­ter­day were Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment Gan­ga Singh, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al An­tho­ny Smart, and lawyer Lar­ry Lal­la.

The Sun­day Guardian learned that both Singh and Smart–chair­man of First Cit­i­zens–re­fused the po­si­tion. While Ra­mad­har's name is still tech­ni­cal­ly in the ring, it is Lal­la who may get the fi­nal nod of ap­proval from Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Cab­i­net.Though Lal­la yes­ter­day said he had not yet been ap­proached, one Cab­i­net in­sid­er yes­ter­day con­firmed that his name was head­ing the pack to re­place Ram­lo­gan.

"The truth is she has not yet made a fi­nal de­ci­sion, but Lal­la's name is be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed," one Cab­i­net in­sid­er said dur­ing a break in the meet­ings.Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to meet with Ram­lo­gan and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith be­fore she ad­dress­es the sit­u­a­tion pub­licly to­mor­row.

Grif­fith has re­mained adamant that he will not bow to Cab­i­net pres­sure to re­call his wit­ness state­ment sup­port­ing West's claim that Ram­lo­gan sought to "per­vert the course of jus­tice" by ask­ing him (West) to re­cant his wit­ness state­ment in the Sec­tion 34 mat­ter. It was re­port­ed that Grif­fith was asked by Ram­lo­gan to con­firm that West had re­called the wit­ness state­ment. Grif­fith, it was re­port­ed, did not know what the state­ment was about.

Law As­so­ci­a­tion:Anand must go

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T yes­ter­day is­sued a me­dia re­lease call­ing for Ram­lo­gan to step down. The as­so­ci­a­tion said in the light of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Ram­lo­gan should step down in or­der to pre­vent an "ero­sion of con­fi­dence" in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. The as­so­ci­a­tion said it made "no com­ment" on Ram­lo­gan's guilt or in­no­cence but felt that giv­en the cir­cum­stances, Ram­lo­gan should be re­moved from the post of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Ac­cord­ing to the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, to pre­vent the ero­sion of con­fi­dence in the Of­fice of the AG, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions which have been em­barked up­on by the po­lice should "be con­duct­ed thor­ough­ly and ex­pe­di­tious­ly in the in­ter­est of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty."

Once the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed, the as­so­ci­a­tion said, any and all ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal steps should be tak­en "with due ex­pe­di­en­cy."

Of­fice­hold­ers un­der­probe should step aside–COP

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple al­so is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day say­ing that it ex­pect­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar to make an an­nounce­ment "short­ly.""The Prime Min­is­ter has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ap­point­ments to min­is­te­r­i­al of­fices and we await her de­ci­sion in this mat­ter," Ra­mad­har said in the re­lease.He re­it­er­at­ed that the COP's po­si­tion was that of­fice­hold­ers un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion "should step aside while in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­ceeds."