JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 15, 2025

AG not backing down on THA/Duke legal matter

by

Renuka Singh
1164 days ago
20220106

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi is not let­ting go of the Wat­son Duke le­gal mat­ter and yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed ten rea­sons to keep the mat­ter alive.

Just three days ago, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine said that when Duke emit­ted of­fice as pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), the law­suit be­came in­valid. The two THA ex­ec­u­tives are rep­re­sent­ed by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh.

In a ten-point re­sponse, the AG said that the dead­line for the fil­ing of af­fi­davits was yes­ter­day “which sug­gests that the is­sues raised by your let­ter re­al­ly con­sti­tute an abu­sive at­tempt to de­rail the strict time frames im­posed by the Court for the de­ter­mi­na­tion of this mat­ter.”

“We must re­spect­ful­ly dis­agree with your as­ser­tion that the is­sue be­fore the Court is aca­d­e­m­ic and we must now en­cour­age you to com­ply with the Court’s di­rec­tions with­in the time frames which were or­dered by the Court, with your in­put, and against which di­rec­tions and time frames you have not ap­pealed,” the AG said.

“First­ly, the al­le­ga­tion of Mr. Duke’s res­ig­na­tion from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) is not an is­sue to which he has de­posed and is de­pen­dent for its vi­a­bil­i­ty sole­ly up­on the as­ser­tions made in your let­ter. In ad­di­tion, Mr. Duke has not de­posed to the fact that he re­signed from the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB) by a let­ter which, al­though dat­ed De­cem­ber 09, 2021, was not de­liv­ered to the RRCB un­til De­cem­ber 16, 2021. We have had to de­pend on the RRCB to pro­vide that in­for­ma­tion,” Al-Rawi said.

Al-Rawi said that the is­sue of the case was the ap­point­ment of Duke as deputy chief sec­re­tary of the THA de­spite the fact that at the time of his ap­point­ment he was both a mem­ber of the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB) and had of­fered his res­ig­na­tion to the PSA but it had not yet been ac­cept­ed.

“It ap­pears to be the case that, at the very least, your client took the po­si­tion when mak­ing the ap­point­ments that he com­plied with the pro­vi­sions of sec­tion 16 (8) of the THA Act. This re­mains so, notwith­stand­ing the let­ters from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dat­ed De­cem­ber 9 and 13, 2021,” he said.

“These let­ters were in­tend­ed to fore­warn your client of the po­ten­tial of his statu­to­ry breach. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, your client stu­dious­ly ig­nored these let­ters and has so far not re­spond­ed to them,” Al-Rawi said.

Al-Rawi said that Duke’s sub­se­quent “al­leged res­ig­na­tion” in­di­cates that it must be ei­ther that your client has had a change of heart and now ac­cepts that the po­si­tion he orig­i­nal­ly took, that there was no in­frac­tion of sec­tion 16 (8) was wrong, or al­ter­na­tive­ly, that the is­sue was al­ways (and still is) in doubt. Whichev­er in­ter­pre­ta­tion is ad­vanced, pro­vides fer­tile ground on which a Court would be oblig­ed to rule. This is­sue is a mat­ter not on­ly of pub­lic in­ter­est but al­so of ac­count­abil­i­ty of elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the State and their ca­pac­i­ty to make de­ci­sions that are not in con­flict with the law.

The AG said that even on the facts of Duke’s res­ig­na­tion, there was at least some pe­ri­od of time when he might have been of the THA Act.

“This ar­gu­ment ap­plies, not to his ap­point­ment ei­ther as an As­sem­bly­man or Sec­re­tary, but to his ca­pac­i­ty to func­tion in that role,” the AG said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Tak­lals­ingh for a re­sponse to the AG but he said it was “not like­ly” to hap­pen at the mo­ment.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored