Fran­cis Joseph

Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­tin Daly, SC, said yes­ter­day that there was some undis­closed or un­fath­omable rea­son why Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning did not con­firm Car­la Brown-An­toine as Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Daly said the coun­try had suf­fered a griev­ous loss when it was de­prived of the con­fir­ma­tion of Brown-An­toine's ser­vices as DPP. She act­ed for eight months, be­fore she was sworn in on Thurs­day as a High Court judge. Yes­ter­day, Brown-An­toine sat for the first time in the Port-of-Spain High Court where a wel­come cer­e­mo­ny was held for her, presided over by Jus­tices Se­bastien Ven­tour and Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee. Sev­er­al oth­er at­tor­neys spoke at the cer­e­mo­ny. Speak­ing at the wel­come cer­e­mo­ny, Daly said, "Your ar­rival on the Bench is a burst of warm and bril­liant sun­shine in the midst of what have been sev­er­al cloudy months for the ju­di­cia­ry and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice."

Daly al­lud­ed to some of the is­sues:

n The in­ten­tion of the po­lit­i­cal ex­ec­u­tive, if per­mit­ted, to take the ret­ro­grade step of es­tab­lish­ing a Min­istry of Jus­tice to in­ter­fere in the in­sti­tu­tion­al in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry.

* The va­can­cies in the key law of­fices of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al.

* Ill-con­sid­ered state­ments by peo­ple who should know bet­ter that struck-out af­fi­davits may not be used.

Daly point­ed out that Brown-An­toine's name fea­tured in the ju­di­cial re­view case brought by then Chief Jus­tice Sat Shar­ma, chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion to ar­rest him on a charge of per­vert­ing the course of pub­lic jus­tice.

"Were it not for the qui­et dig­ni­ty with which you ac­cept­ed the un­ex­plained ve­to, I am con­fi­dent that your la­dy­ship's name would have again en­tered the law re­ports, this time, not as a re­spon­dent, but as a claimant in a pub­lic law case, chal­leng­ing suc­cess­ful­ly, I am sure, the fail­ure to give rea­sons for the ex­er­cise of the con­sti­tu­tion­al ve­to," Daly said. "It is the view of many lawyers that the per­son who is the sub­ject mat­ter of a con­sti­tu­tion­al ve­to is en­ti­tled to know the rea­sons for the ex­er­cise of the con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er." Daly de­scribed Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie's ad­dress at the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the law term as a won­der­ful dis­ser­ta­tion on the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry. Two oth­er judges were al­so sworn in on Thurs­day–Jus­tices An­dre Mon De­sir and Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh.

About car­la brown-an­toine

Brown-An­toine's en­tire pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer from 1989 had been with the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, be­gin­ning as a State Coun­sel, and ris­ing to the po­si­tion of Deputy Di­rec­tor in 2001, and act­ing on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions as Di­rec­tor.

In this ca­pac­i­ty, Brown-An­toine rep­re­sent­ed the State in all courts in Trinidad and To­ba­go in crim­i­nal lit­i­ga­tion, al­so ad­vis­ing the DPP, the po­lice and oth­er state agen­cies on crim­i­nal mat­ters. She had al­so been in­volved in the train­ing of at­tor­neys, po­lice of­fi­cers, pris­ons of­fi­cers and oth­ers in­volved in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.