Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has once again re­fused to re­con­sid­er his stance on the im­peach­ment of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. This time, the Prime Min­is­ter wrote to the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) mak­ing his view clear.

“I have con­sid­ered, ful­ly tak­en in­to ac­count and ob­served the find­ings and state­ments of Mr Jus­tice (Vashiest) Kokaram in his judg­ment. I, there­fore, re­con­sid­er my de­ci­sion on the HDC (Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion) is­sue with an open mind and with­out re­gard to any po­lit­i­cal or oth­er mo­ti­va­tion on the part of the LATT,” he said.

“Af­ter such con­sid­er­a­tion, I have de­cid­ed not to make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Pres­i­dent un­der s137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. I adopt those rea­sons for my said re­con­sid­ered de­ci­sion and do not set them out here.

“In the judg­ment, it was held that the LATT’s chal­lenge to my de­ci­sion was dis­missed in­so­far as it was based on the grounds of ra­tio­nal­i­ty/rea­son­able­ness, the de­ci­sion not hav­ing been made in the per­for­mance of my con­sti­tu­tion­al func­tions in the pub­lic in­ter­est, bad faith and fail­ure to take in­to ac­count rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tions.”

The PM fur­ther stat­ed, “The ap­pli­ca­tion for ju­di­cial re­view on the ground that I con­sid­ered the ir­rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tion of the po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tion of the LATT in ar­riv­ing at my de­ci­sion was quashed with ref­er­ence to that ground and re­mit­ted to me for my re­con­sid­er­a­tion with an open mind and with­out re­gard to the po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tion of the LATT.”

This let­ter comes af­ter a se­ries of com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween Row­ley and the LATT. The LATT had writ­ten to him in De­cem­ber 2018, invit­ing him to de­ter­mine whether a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Pres­i­dent re­gard­ing the con­duct of the CJ was war­rant­ed.

The CJ dra­ma be­gan when the LATT ac­cused Archie of us­ing his of­fice to fast track ap­pli­ca­tions for homes at the HDC.

The LATT ac­cused Archie of im­pro­pri­ety and in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour while in of­fice.

In the fray, Row­ley ac­cused the LATT of act­ing as an arm of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Row­ley’s let­ter, which was re­ceived and vet­ted by the LATT on Fri­day, caused a di­vide at an emer­gency meet­ing on Sat­ur­day.

Ac­cord­ing to in­sid­ers at the meet­ing, sev­er­al lawyers vot­ed to ap­peal Jus­tice Kokaram’s de­ci­sion but the ma­jor­i­ty vot­ed to up­hold it. Mean­ing that the LATT would not seek an ap­peal on the mat­ter.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, head of the LATT, Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes de­mand­ed to know where Guardian Me­dia got the in­for­ma­tion about the fall­out at the meet­ing.

“I would sug­gest you en­sure that the source is not some­one that is try­ing to cre­ate mis­chief,” he said.

“I am not go­ing to re­spond to non­sense and I am not go­ing to dig­ni­fy un­ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion with a re­sponse.”

How­ev­er, the in­sid­er con­firmed that a sec­ond meet­ing was be­ing held at the LATT to con­tin­ue to ham­mer out the group’s re­sponse on this mat­ter.

In the build-up to this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, Row­ley claimed that Kokaram’s de­ci­sion had ab­solved him of any wrong­do­ing. He said then that he did not wish to be drawn in­to the mat­ter as it was one for the CJ and the LATT.

In his rul­ing, Kokaram said that Row­ley would have to re­con­sid­er the as­so­ci­a­tion's com­plaint against the CJ with an open mind.