SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Dis­miss­ing al­le­ga­tions of bias and calls for his re­cusal, chair­man of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Paria div­ing tragedy, Jerome Lynch KC, says he will not be de­terred from prepar­ing the re­port.

He was speak­ing at a vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence on Wednes­day to ad­dress the com­mis­sion’s third re­quest for an ex­ten­sion for the sub­mis­sion of the re­port.

Lynch re­vealed that lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Ken­son Group em­ploy­ees, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny had sent let­ters ask­ing for their re­cusal. Ken­son’s let­ters were sent on Au­gust 2 and Ju­ly 31, while Her­itage and Paria’s let­ters were sent on Tues­day.

“Both sug­gest they have been un­fair­ly treat­ed and that the com­mis­sion­ers, I sus­pect pri­mar­i­ly me, have dis­played an ap­par­ent bias and that we should be re­cused. I do not deal with the mer­its of those com­plaints now as they have yet to be ful­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed, and a press con­fer­ence is not the right fo­rum.

“But, whilst I whole­heart­ed­ly re­ject those al­le­ga­tions, I would have thought that if there was to be an ap­pli­ca­tion for re­cusal on the grounds of ap­par­ent bias it is nor­mal. In the first in­stance, for that to be made be­fore the tri­bunal en­gaged in the process,” Lynch said.

How­ev­er, he said no re­quest has been made for the CoE to re­sume sit­ting to hear such an ap­pli­ca­tion. In an­swer to a ques­tion, Lynch said if the par­ties choose to ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion that is a mat­ter for them, but the com­mis­sion will not be de­terred from its task.

“If they are go­ing else­where, that is to say to the high court, to seek to have us pre­vent­ed from pub­lish­ing the re­port or pro­vid­ing the re­port, as one of them sug­gest­ed our ap­proach has been ir­re­triev­able, that is a mat­ter for them. I can’t and won’t de­lay my task in prepar­ing this re­port,” he added.

Lynch not­ed that the com­mis­sion has now re­ceived re­spons­es from all in­volved, but no one re­fused to re­spond or has with­drawn from the process. Lynch al­so dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that the cause of the de­lay was a re­sult of in­ter­fer­ence—po­lit­i­cal­ly or from Paria.

“I can state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that is not the case. If there were even a whiff of such an ap­proach, I would make that very pub­lic in­deed.”

Lynch added that af­ter ini­tial hic­cups with the nec­es­sary fa­cil­i­ties, the Gov­ern­ment and, in par­tic­u­lar, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young have done all they could to fa­cil­i­tate and ex­pe­dite the com­mis­sion’s re­port.

He was con­fi­dent the Gov­ern­ment would pub­lish the re­port in short or­der once con­clud­ed.

Lynch apol­o­gised to the fam­i­lies of the four divers who died and the lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram, who had is­sued a joint state­ment re­ject­ing a fur­ther ex­ten­sion to sub­mit the re­port.

“Whilst we do not ac­cept that their crit­i­cism is en­tire­ly fair, we can and do un­der­stand their deep sense of frus­tra­tion at this fur­ther de­lay and I there­fore apol­o­gise to them, first.

“That apol­o­gy is ex­tend­ed to every­one await­ing the fi­nal out­come of this re­port. It is clear from the fam­i­lies and oth­ers that they have al­ready formed the view that they hold Paria re­spon­si­ble. We do not have the lux­u­ry of pre-judg­ing. We must ap­proach this in an un­bi­ased, ob­jec­tive way, ex­am­in­ing all the ev­i­dence be­fore reach­ing our view of the facts and what that means for the peo­ple in­volved,” he said.

The CoE com­menced a year ago to look in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to the deaths of Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Yusuf Hen­ry and Kaz­im Ali Jr af­ter they got sucked in­to a pipeline at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing’s fa­cil­i­ties at Berth 6.

Ken­son re­sponds, claims no move to de­lay re­port

The at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Ken­son has de­nied that they asked for the com­mis­sion­ers’ re­cusal.

Con­tact­ed for a re­sponse to Lynch’s claim, at­tor­ney Chase Pe­gus said, “It is not ac­cu­rate to say that we have asked or threat­ened to ask for any re­cusal. We wrote to Mr Lynch by let­ter dat­ed 31st Ju­ly to which let­ter we have re­ceived no sub­stan­tive re­sponse. Yes­ter­day, a day be­fore he was sched­uled to have his press con­fer­ence, we re­ceived a let­ter in­di­cat­ing that a sub­stan­tive re­sponse would be pro­vid­ed in due course.”

He did not pro­vide a copy of the let­ter nor did he in­di­cate the na­ture of their let­ter to the Com­mis­sion.

Pe­gus al­so de­nied that Ken­son at­tempt­ed to de­lay the re­port.

“The fact that our cor­re­spon­dence was used to jus­ti­fy the sub­stan­tial de­lay now be­ing oc­ca­sioned is in­ex­plic­a­ble. We ob­serve, too, as we did in our let­ter of 31st Ju­ly, that no re­cent de­ci­sion of any court has rewrit­ten the law in a man­ner which would war­rant or jus­ti­fy the sub­stan­tial de­lay. We there­fore dis­so­ci­ate our­selves en­tire­ly from the de­lay and have seen no true jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for it,” he said.

At­tempts to reach Paria at­tor­ney Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC were un­suc­cess­ful.