The Law As­so­ci­a­tion says they are dis­ap­point­ed by what they call mis­lead­ing com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley about al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion. In a press re­lease is­sued this af­ter­noon, the As­so­ci­a­tion called on the Prime Min­is­ter to with­draw his com­ments.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion: 

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (“the Law As­so­ci­a­tion”) wish­es to reg­is­ter its dis­ap­point­ment with mis­lead­ing com­ments made by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter at his press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day 2nd Ju­ly 2022 about al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and call up­on him to with­draw them.  

While the Law As­so­ci­a­tion does not wish to re­hash mat­ters which are now sev­er­al years old, it is im­por­tant to briefly re­fer to some of the events per­ti­nent to the mat­ter in­volv­ing the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice, which the Prime Min­is­ter raised in his press con­fer­ence.  

One of the al­le­ga­tions made at the time re­lat­ed to al­leged com­mu­ni­ca­tions pass­ing be­tween the Chief Jus­tice and the Prime Min­is­ter. As part of the en­quiry which the Law As­so­ci­a­tion de­cid­ed to con­duct, in re­spect of this mat­ter, and in pur­su­ing its statu­to­ry man­date, which was en­dorsed by the Privy Coun­cil, the then Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter en­quir­ing whether there had been such com­mu­ni­ca­tions.  

We re­ceived no re­sponse. By let­ter of 22nd Ju­ly 2019, the Prime Min­is­ter ad­vised of his de­ci­sion not to im­peach the Chief Jus­tice, and on­ly then said that he had “not re­ceived from the Chief Jus­tice nor have I sent any What­sApp mes­sages to him…. nor in­deed have I had any com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Chief Jus­tice re­gard­ing” the al­le­ga­tions.  

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “Clear­ly I can­not ig­nore this fact, which ef­fec­tive­ly dis­pos­es of this com­plaint. The con­tents of the Prime Min­is­ter’s let­ter must be re­vis­it­ed to point out that the Law As­so­ci­a­tion had writ­ten to him, be­cause the Law As­so­ci­a­tion held the view that if there had been such com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Prime Min­is­ter would have had to re­veal them and take them in­to ac­count, when con­sid­er­ing whether or not to im­peach the Chief Jus­tice. 

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s en­quiry was nei­ther sur­rep­ti­tious nor an at­tempt to en­trap the Prime Min­is­ter as al­leged or at all. These were ques­tions the Law As­so­ci­a­tion was re­quired to ask the Prime Min­is­ter as part of our en­quiry. It is in­deed re­gret­table that com­ments on the mat­ter have been ex­pressed in a way which sug­gests that the Law As­so­ci­a­tion act­ed im­prop­er­ly in dis­charg­ing its le­git­i­mate func­tions.  

With re­spect to the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments about the Spe­cial Gen­er­al Meet­ing which has been sched­uled to de­bate a Mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, we re­mind all con­cerned that un­der Clause 23 of the First Sched­ule to the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act, we are ob­lig­at­ed to call such a meet­ing once we re­ceive a req­ui­si­tion from at least 25 mem­bers re­quest­ing one.  

Our mem­bers are ful­ly en­ti­tled to en­gage this process and to ven­ti­late mat­ters which mem­bers view as falling with­in the man­date of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act. The Law As­so­ci­a­tion sought to gath­er rel­e­vant doc­u­men­ta­tion on the mat­ter and have in­vit­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to re­spond to mat­ters raised by mem­bers of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion if he wish­es to do so. The Law As­so­ci­a­tion will pro­ceed with ap­pro­pri­ate de­lib­er­a­tion ob­serv­ing the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness and nat­ur­al jus­tice.