DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

John Je­re­mie, SC, was sworn in yes­ter­day as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s new At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at Pres­i­dent’s House—mark­ing a his­toric re­turn to pub­lic of­fice un­der a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal ban­ner.

Je­re­mie, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as AG un­der Patrick Man­ning’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2009 to 2010, is now the sec­ond per­son to hold the po­si­tion un­der two po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Sel­wyn Richard­son was the first per­son to hold the po­si­tion of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al un­der two po­lit­i­cal par­ties, serv­ing with the PNM from 1976 to 1981 and with the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion from 1986 to 1989.

His en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­gan pub­licly at a Pe­nal meet­ing on April 14, where he praised her lead­er­ship and their long-stand­ing per­son­al con­nec­tion.

He lat­er ap­peared at UNC ral­lies in Arou­ca and at the Code Yel­low event in Aranguez just days be­fore Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Af­ter tak­ing the oath, Je­re­mie told re­porters his re­turn was both an ho­n­our and a se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a point now in its his­to­ry, an in­flec­tion point, and we are pret­ty close to the brink of dis­as­ter,” he said.

He ac­knowl­edged con­cerns about events dur­ing the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion but de­clined to go in­to specifics. How­ev­er, he promised to bring ex­pe­ri­ence to the role and said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ap­proached him ear­li­er this year about re­turn­ing to pub­lic life, a pro­pos­al he ini­tial­ly de­clined be­fore re­con­sid­er­ing.

Je­re­mie out­lined sev­er­al is­sues he hopes to ad­dress, in­clud­ing a laun­dry list of civ­il lit­i­ga­tions in­volv­ing for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

“If con­duct was thought to be ques­tion­able but it did not pass muster with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the at­tor­ney gen­er­al stood back. Af­ter I left of­fice, the pletho­ra of civ­il suits start­ed,” he said.

He warned about the risks of po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed civ­il ac­tions and said he would ex­am­ine those cas­es close­ly.

“One of the dan­gers of hav­ing a po­lit­i­cal ap­pointee take civ­il ac­tions is that there’s a po­ten­tial for abuse. That’s all that I say to­day but I’m go­ing to be look­ing at those things very care­ful­ly.”

Re­spond­ing to for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­marks dis­miss­ing his sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Je­re­mie replied: “I think those things re­flect more on the per­son who said them, maybe he has anger is­sues. They don’t re­flect on me. I’m a hu­man be­ing.”

Ad­dress­ing Je­re­mie’s sup­port of Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Row­ley had said, “I have five dogs and I’m handy with a shov­el, so John Je­re­mie does not faze me or the PNM.” Je­re­mie al­so raised con­cerns about gov­ern­ment spend­ing on pri­vate le­gal fees.

“I’m both­ered about the fact that ... a bil­lion dol­lars is paid out to at­tor­neys at a time when the rest of the so­ci­ety is suf­fer­ing. That is some­thing that caus­es me dis­qui­et.”

He said that dur­ing his pre­vi­ous tenure, he had im­ple­ment­ed re­forms to re­duce such spend­ing, but not­ed “some­thing went wrong” af­ter he left.

When asked whether sim­i­lar costs oc­curred dur­ing his time in of­fice, he said on­ly a mar­itime bor­der dis­pute with Bar­ba­dos had been “pret­ty ex­pen­sive,” but added that the lat­est le­gal bill was “as­tro­nom­i­cal.”

“Some­thing has to be done about that,” he said.

On crime leg­is­la­tion, Je­re­mie was blunt in his as­sess­ment that he was un­hap­py with the PNM’s leg­isla­tive agen­da for the past 10 years.

On his role in help­ing the UNC with its leg­isla­tive agen­da and crime in par­tic­u­lar, he said, “The Prime Min­is­ter is, again, ac­tive­ly in­volved in de­vel­op­ing the Cab­i­net. My min­istry plays a sup­port­ing role to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ... but what­ev­er they wish, they will have pri­or­i­ty be­cause I think that that is one of the things—crime and the econ­o­my. Those two things. If you don’t get a han­dle on that, we’re fin­ished as a coun­try.”

Mean­while, asked why she chose Je­re­mie for the role, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I think he is a bril­liant per­son and very down-to-earth at the same time. I think he’ll make an ex­cel­lent AG. Of course, that’s why I chose him.”