Attorney General John Jeremie says he has drafted a Validation Bill to validate the work of the suspended Commission of Enquiry into the Construction Sector, and to have it's hearings resumed.
Jeremie also announced the appointment of retired Justice of Appeal Anthony Lucky to conduct an "urgent probe" on how the Government failed to comply with the legal requirement to publish in the Gazette, the holding of the commission of enquiry. Jeremie made these revelations during a statement in the House of Representatives before the resumption of the 2009/09 budget debate yesterday. He said he would "bring before Parliament, as a matter of urgency, Validation Act which he had already drafted on the instructions of the Cabinet. "These are concrete steps which the Government will take, beginning today, to protect its commission," Jeremie said. The commission of enquiry, which began public hearings on January 12, was suspended last week by Chairman John Uff because of the slip-up. Jeremie said yesterday that the Government was still unable to explain the oversight. He said the failure to gazette the Commission was "arguably wholly ineffective."
According to the AG, this meant that although the four commissioners were acting bona fides, they "were not at any time authorised to exercise the powers which would ordinarily have been vested in them under the Act, and they would also not be under any legal obligation to complete the enquiry." He said the commissioners would not have been under any legal obligation to "submit a protected report and in particular (to) complete the outstanding term of reference relating to the Cleaver Heights project." Jeremie added that every witness, Commissioner, every journalist who covered the proceedings in good faith "runs the risk by virtue of their participation in the inquiry of being outside the statutory immunities set out in the Act." He said it was a fact that the commission had been published in a variety of ways to the public, including via live video link, the Internet and the print and electronic media. "Publication in the Gazette is an unfortunate relic of our colonial past," the AG added.
He said the purpose of publishing a matter in the Gazette was to ensure that even if there were no private enterprise press to notify the public, it would not have been prejudiced by ignorance. Jeremie stressed there was the potential for the work of the commission to be defeated "if we should fail to act decisively and correctly." He said the failure to publish in the Gazette was an area of "uncharted waters" for the Government of T&T.