An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Eleven at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion min­is­ter An­tho­ny Smart, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi, are ex­pect­ed to be con­ferred silk at Pres­i­dent’s House to­mor­row.

Al­so named in the pur­port­ed list be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed in the pub­lic do­main are Si­mon de La Bastide, Ha­sine Shaikh, Justin Phelps, Ravi Nan­ga, Prakash De­onar­ine, Elaine Greene, Nizam Mo­hammed, and Lee Mer­ry.

How­ev­er, the head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan, SC, ex­pressed con­cern over Al-Rawi’s silk.

On Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley slipped in an an­nounce­ment about Min­is­ter Young as he wrapped up de­bate on the whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion. Dr Row­ley was at the time chastis­ing the Op­po­si­tion for not sup­port­ing the bill. While mak­ing the point he has of­ten made that the Gov­ern­ment fought to re­trieve bil­lions of dol­lars from Brazil­ian firm OAS Con­stru­to­ra re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way, he said, “Once again, I want to con­grat­u­late and thank Se­nior Coun­sel Stu­art Young for the work he has done.”

The state­ment at­tract­ed thumps on the desk from the Gov­ern­ment side but jeers from the Op­po­si­tion.

Se­nior Coun­sel Khan said that Min­is­ter Young was de­serv­ing of silk due to his “rep­u­ta­tion, mer­it, abil­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty,” but ques­tioned Min­is­ter Al-Rawi’s silk. “There is a prob­lem hang­ing over the head of Al-Rawi in re­la­tion to the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment with King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son that he en­tered in­to to pros­e­cute for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, and the present AG had in­di­cat­ed pub­licly that he would re­veal at the ap­pro­pri­ate time the sig­nif­i­cance of that in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, so that is hang­ing over his head,” Khan out­lined.

The se­nior coun­sel said if Al-Rawi has not been cleared of all wrong­do­ing, then there is a blot on the whole process of award­ing silk.

“You have to have im­pec­ca­ble in­tegri­ty to be grant­ed silk, and if you en­tered in­to an agree­ment as AG, which caused the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion (DPP) to with­draw the cas­es against Anand Ram­lo­gan, there is a blot on him. We just have to wait and see,” Khan said.

Speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing the launch of La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Co Ltd's (Labid­co) sec­ond phase of its Plant for a Pur­pose ini­tia­tive yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Young said he was grate­ful and priv­i­leged to re­ceive silk.

“I was called to the bar in Eng­land, in Wales in 1997, and called to the bar in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1998.

“From there, I prac­tised law as an ad­vo­cate at­tor­ney in the courts, all the way up to the Privy Coun­cil, up un­til the day I was sworn in on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2015 (as a min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the AG and Le­gal Af­fairs and min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter). “I am very priv­i­leged to be in the po­si­tion where I was able to serve T&T as a cit­i­zen in the role I have been serv­ing in the last nine years, and I am even more hum­bled by the ho­n­our of silk be­ing con­ferred up­on me.

“I would just like to thank every­body for their sup­port and as­sure the pop­u­la­tion that I will con­tin­ue to use what­ev­er God-giv­en skills I have, in par­tic­u­lar in law, and in par­tic­u­lar in the skills of ad­vo­ca­cy for the peo­ple. It is a great ho­n­our for me, and I am hum­bled.”

Asked about the ba­sis for his se­lec­tion and what cas­es would have de­ter­mined him for se­lec­tion, Young replied, “I am not the one who makes the award of silk, so I could on­ly be thank­ful, be hum­bled, and be grate­ful.”

Reached for com­ment on the mat­ter, Se­nior Coun­sel An­tho­ny Vieira said both men are de­serv­ing of the silk. Vieira high­light­ed that, in his view, Al-Rawi was a very good at­tor­ney gen­er­al, and he could have tak­en silk while sit­ting in the seat like oth­er past AGs but did not do so.

When asked about Khan’s con­cerns with Al-Rawi, Vieira quick­ly said it would be un­fair to pe­nalise some­one for one er­ror and ig­nore the good that has been ac­com­plished by the in­di­vid­ual.

Vieira said he ex­pects much de­bate on this top­ic in the com­ing days. He not­ed that Young has al­ways im­pressed him as an able ad­vo­cate, is very in­dus­tri­ous, and has steered the en­er­gy sec­tor dili­gent­ly.

Al-Rawi did not re­spond to What­sApp mes­sages and calls to his cell­phone yes­ter­day.

Last year, there was an up­roar from dif­fer­ent sec­tors when 17 at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing the broth­er and hus­band of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo—Col­in Kan­ga­loo and Ker­wyn Gar­cia—were con­ferred with silk.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo clar­i­fied that she had no part in the pro­ce­dure adopt­ed for ap­point­ments and ex­plained that it is the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al who in­vites ap­pli­ca­tions from mem­bers of the le­gal pro­fes­sion be­fore con­sult­ing with the Chief Jus­tice and oth­er stake­hold­ers.