Ex­pla­na­tion time.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith on Tues­day added to the voic­es call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour to ac­count for the de­tails of the pro­ceed­ings brought by Kings Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son against the State.

This, fol­low­ing Mon­day’s dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the al­leged cor­rup­tion case against UNC at­tor­neys Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ger­ald Ramdeen due to is­sues in­volv­ing Nel­son, the main pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the NTA “shares the shock and deep con­cern of all right-think­ing cit­i­zens re­gard­ing the chain of events, lead­ing to the de­ci­sion” to dis­con­tin­ue the case.

He said, “As has been con­firmed in the Oc­to­ber 10 press re­lease is­sued by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the DPP’s de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue stems from the main pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness re­fus­ing to give ev­i­dence, pend­ing the out­come of civ­il lit­i­ga­tion against the State claim­ing an in­dem­ni­ty in re­spect of the fine of $2.25 mil­lion he was or­dered to pay by the High Court.

“Any such in­dem­ni­ty by the Gov­ern­ment, as has been al­leged by Vin­cent Nel­son, clear­ly push­es at the bound­aries of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly hav­ing re­gard to the DPP hav­ing ex­er­cised his pow­ers to en­ter in­to a plea agree­ment with Nel­son.”

He added, “The NTA is call­ing up­on the AG to dis­close by pub­li­ca­tion, the civ­il claim files by Nel­son against the State. Full trans­paren­cy is re­quired.

“In light of the col­lapse of this case, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al must now ful­ly and frankly ac­count to the peo­ple by mak­ing pub­lic the full de­tails of the pro­ceed­ings brought by Nel­son against the State. This fi­as­co de­mands no less than com­plete trans­paren­cy by the Prime Min­is­ter and his At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.”

Grif­fith said Sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion makes it clear that the DPP’s de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue any pro­ceed­ings is not sub­ject to the in­struc­tion, di­rec­tion or over­sight of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

He said, “Im­per­fect though our Con­sti­tu­tion may be, the AG is bound not on­ly to re­spect it but al­so to up­hold it. The press re­lease by the AG, how­ev­er, in­stead seems to dou­ble down on the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempts to en­croach on the in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice of the DPP. This is no less than the con­tin­u­a­tion of a pat­tern by this PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion to prac­ti­cal­ly erase the lines that de­mar­cate the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers un­der our Con­sti­tu­tion.

“This en­tire de­ba­cle again points to se­ri­ous flaws in our Con­sti­tu­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing both the pro­tec­tion of in­de­pen­dent of­fices and ac­count­abil­i­ty of of­fice hold­ers. Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is high on the NTA’s agen­da.”