Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused some lawyers of “grov­el­ling” to sup­port At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour in the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s (LATT) re­cent no-con­fi­dence vote, in or­der to pro­tect their State briefs and board ap­point­ments.

And she is call­ing on the LATT to make the tran­scripts of the meet­ing avail­able to mem­bers.

“We have ‘CEPEP and URP lawyers’ in T&T,” Per­sad Bisses­sar said at Mon­day’s UNC Mon­day Night Fo­rum meet­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said she fol­lowed the meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly, said on­ly about 18 per cent of LATT mem­bers at­tend­ed and a to­tal of 551 vot­ed—but said the vote won’t ex­on­er­ate Ar­mour.

She said the fig­ures showed there is ap­a­thy and dis­in­ter­est in the le­gal pro­fes­sion on im­por­tant is­sues.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­mend­ed at­tor­neys Kiel Tak­lals­ingh and Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan for pre­sent­ing the mo­tion.

But she said all the oth­ers who “grov­elled to Ar­mour and the PNM made fools of them­selves” and no longer hold cred­i­bil­i­ty among lawyers.

She said, “When the meet­ing’s tran­scripts be­come pub­lic, all of T&T will know the truth of what hap­pened; how Se­nior Coun­sel em­bar­rassed them­selves in their des­per­a­tion to ‘eat ah food’—all of T&T will be laugh­ing at these men.”

“I say to the LATT, make the tran­scripts of that meet­ing avail­able to mem­bers as soon as pos­si­ble and let the pub­lic be shown how they made a laugh­ing­stock of them­selves.

“For me, it was hys­ter­i­cal and hi­lar­i­ous to see these se­niors and board ap­pointees lin­ing up one af­ter the oth­er to grov­el. They re­sort­ed to be­com­ing grov­ellers and beg­gars to save their mon­ey train from the Gov­ern­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke dis­parag­ing­ly of some se­nior lawyers’ pre­sen­ta­tions, ques­tion­ing how many de­fen­dants they might go to court to de­fend and say their clients was a “good boy”.

“These men have shamed them­selves as beg­gars and so many are laugh­ing at them.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so claimed peo­ple were “forced” to vote for Ar­mour and much lob­by­ing had been go­ing on for this be­fore the meet­ing.

“Many young lawyers who vot­ed for him say they were forced to do so, as PNM was tak­ing names of those present and they were afraid to lose their jobs,” she claimed

She list­ed cer­tain at­tor­neys and al­leged monies which they or their firms col­lect­ed for State briefs work, in­clud­ing Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny and Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings chair­man Michael Quam­i­na, WASA chair­man Ravi Nan­ga, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, An­gos­tu­ra chair­man Ter­rence Bharath, Col­in Kan­ga­loo (broth­er of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo), Rus­sel Mar­tineau, Ravi Ra­jku­mar, He­li­co­nia found­ing mem­ber Farai Ma­sai­sai, ex-WASA chair­man Rom­ney Thomas.

“Can you imag­ine where we’ve gone so far, these se­nior lawyers have gone so far to pro­tect their briefs? This is the aris­toc­ra­cy of the PNM and we must unite to work to­geth­er to get them out of our coun­try!”

Yes­ter­day, some LATT mem­bers said that as fi­nan­cial mem­bers, they al­so want­ed the tran­scripts to be made avail­able to mem­bers.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call, Law As­so­ci­a­tion sec­re­tary Bi­jili Lal­la said she had con­ferred with the LATT’s Coun­cil.

“They have not heard the com­ments of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and have no com­ment at this time,” Lal­la said

Al­so, in re­sponse to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims, Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC, said, “I don’t re­spond to those things.”

Ter­rence Bharath mean­while sim­ply said, “No com­ment.”