Joel Julien

Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, the coun­sel to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria tragedy, has dis­tanced him­self from the fail­ings to pro­vide re­sources for it.

Ma­haraj made the state­ment in a re­lease is­sued to­day fol­low­ing con­cerns raised by the en­quiry's chair­man Queen's Coun­sel Jerome Lynch yes­ter­day.

"In light of state­ments pub­lished in the Me­dia, it is my du­ty in the pub­lic in­ter­est to make it clear that the Com­mis­sion­ers and/ or the Coun­sel to the Com­mis­sion do not have any re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry with the ad­min­is­tra­tive in­fra­struc­ture it re­quires to func­tion in or­der for the Com­mis­sion to dis­charge its du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties," the re­lease stat­ed.

Ma­haraj said all the rel­e­vant ap­pli­ca­tions were made to the State for the Com­mis­sion to ob­tain the req­ui­site ad­min­is­tra­tive in­fra­struc­ture to dis­charge its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Ma­haraj said Lynch made it clear that de­spite the time lost by the de­lay he in­tends to com­plete the ev­i­den­tial hear­ing by ear­ly Jan­u­ary for the lat­est.

"This would be a record time for the com­ple­tion of Ev­i­den­tial Hear­ings by any Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in T&T," Ma­haraj said.