RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al- Rawi has filed an in­ter­pre­ta­tion claim in the High Court seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on whether Wat­son Duke can hold po­si­tions in the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion and the Recog­ni­tion Board, whilst serv­ing as a sec­re­tary in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

The ac­tion which seeks to clar­i­fy THA Act, Chap. 25:03 comes a day af­ter THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he would ac­cept no ad­vice from the AG on the ap­point­ment of Wat­son Duke as deputy THA Chif Sec­re­tary, as Ali-Rawi’s fam­i­ly had been ben­e­fit­ing hand­some­ly from Gov­ern­ment rent while he served as AG.

Speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing a key dis­tri­b­u­tion func­tion at his con­stituen­cy of­fice on Thurs­day, Al-Rawi said he took no of­fence at Au­gus­tine’s chides as he be­lieved they were made in jest.

“Au­gus­tine is THA’s chief sec­re­tary and he is a man I have great re­gard for. I am quite sure the Chief of the THA un­der­stands that the AG is the AG for the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and it is my du­ty to as­sist all of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Al Rawi said.

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) as well as the Recog­ni­tion Board mem­bers had ex­pressed con­cerns over Duke’s ap­point­ment and had writ­ten to him.

“To­day with a view to en­sur­ing there is clar­i­ty on the is­sue of Mr Duke, I filed an in­ter­pre­ta­tion claim in court ask­ing for the court to look at the is­sue as to whether Duke is in a po­si­tion of hold­ing more than one ap­point­ment,” Al- Rawi said.

He added, “Duke is pres­i­dent of the PSA and a mem­ber of the Recog­ni­tion Board. He was ap­point­ed by the Cab­i­net pur­suant to his po­si­tion and he is re­mu­ner­at­ed for that po­si­tion as a mat­ter of law. It is not some­thing you can stop.”

The AG ex­plained, “Mr Duke has now put us in a po­si­tion where we sought to ask the court to in­ter­pret the po­si­tions of the THA Act and In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. The Recog­ni­tion Board and the CPO wrote to me ex­press­ing deep con­cern over the sit­u­a­tion. As AG I am oblig­ed to clar­i­fy the law. They asked for a view on the law and I think it is pru­dent to ask the court for that in­ter­pre­ta­tion and on an ur­gent ba­sis. The last thing we want to do is ex­pose the THA by hav­ing its po­si­tion chal­lenged.”

Al Rawi said, “ If there is a po­si­tion of un­law­ful hold­ing of of­fice then de­ci­sions com­ing in­to odi­um and we must pro­tect the peo­ple of To­ba­go so the pru­dent po­si­tion is to get the court to pro­vide guid­ance.”

Asked whether Duke had a sin­is­ter rea­son for hold­ing on to mul­ti­ple po­si­tions of pow­er, the AG said, “I gave up try­ing to un­der­stand Duke. He is a po­lit­i­cal leader, he has done well at the polls. He has done well and se­cured po­lit­i­cal of­fice and one de­serves to have the dig­ni­ty of of­fice up­held and re­spect­ed. But our job as the Gov­ern­ment is to en­sure the THA is prop­er­ly as­sist­ed. The in­ter­pre­ta­tion claim will help us to get there.”

Asked when the mat­ter will be heard, Al Rawi said, “We filed an ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing ur­gent hear­ing of the mat­ter. In the cir­cum­stances, Duke made an of­fer to re­sign but it is not an ac­tu­al res­ig­na­tion. It leaves it open as to whether the of­fice wants to ac­cept it or not. What has been put for­ward cre­ates is­sues in the THA and the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, which af­fects the CPO and the Recog­ni­tion Board so I am com­pelled to take steps to clar­i­fy the law.”

The mat­ter filed in the court seeks to get an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Sec­tion 16(8) of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act, Chap. 25:03 (THA Act).

Duke was ap­point­ed as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of THA whilst at the same time serv­ing as Chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and a mem­ber of the Reg­is­tra­tion Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB) for which he is in re­ceipt of re­mu­ner­a­tion.

Al-Rawi said he sought ad­vice from sev­er­al mem­bers of the Se­nior Bar, who all agreed that there was an is­sue to be de­cid­ed by the Court.

In a press re­lease, he not­ed that the “ap­pli­ca­tion does not seek to un­seat the elec­tion of any per­son to the As­sem­bly or to the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil of the THA. It mere­ly seeks to clar­i­fy the law in the THA Act, as well as the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Chap. 22:01, re­gard­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion against a Sec­re­tary of the THA and a per­son in pub­lic life, en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties which would be in con­flict with his du­ties as a Sec­re­tary.”