Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­neys with­in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) say they do not feel slight­ed by the ap­point­ment of John Je­re­mie as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. In fact, one says she is not ex­pe­ri­enced enough to hold the sec­ond-high­est po­si­tion in the coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment.

Je­re­mie served as AG from 2003 to 2007 and then from 2009 to 2010, both times un­der a Patrick Man­ning-led Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment.

He ad­mit­ted to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing his swear­ing-in on Thurs­day that he was on­ly ap­proached this year for the post by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

How­ev­er, three of the sev­er­al at­tor­neys as­so­ci­at­ed with the UNC say they wel­come his ap­point­ment and do not feel as if they were over­looked for the po­si­tion by a new­com­er to the par­ty and for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment mem­ber.

For­mer UNC Sen­a­tor and at­tor­ney-at-law Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said she trusts Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s judge­ment. She ad­mit­ted to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that she does not be­lieve she pos­sess­es the req­ui­site ex­pe­ri­ence for such a se­nior Cab­i­net port­fo­lio.

“As much as peo­ple think any­body who is a lawyer can be AG, I think the depth of ex­pe­ri­ence that is nec­es­sary for that port­fo­lio, I do not have. I do not think I am qual­i­fied for that po­si­tion. I al­so don’t think where I am right now with my per­son­al life that I am pre­pared to serve in that po­si­tion. AG is the sec­ond most im­por­tant po­si­tion in the Cab­i­net and it re­quires some­one who can give a lot more than I can at this time,” she said.

Com­ment­ing on Je­re­mie’s com­pe­ten­cy, Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said, “He was my teacher at UWI for my first and third years of my LLB so I know he has a strong aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground. I think he has a lot to bring as an at­tor­ney and as an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. He has a strong aca­d­e­m­ic base in the law and the ex­pe­ri­ence as AG.”

Mean­while new­ly elect­ed MP for Aranguez/St Joseph De­vesh Ma­haraj, who is al­so a lawyer, said that Je­re­mie’s ap­point­ment was a well-thought-out move by the Prime min­is­ter. He, too, did not feel as if he was over­looked for the po­si­tion of AG.

“I don’t feel slight­ed at all. I know I am part of the process and it is un­fold­ing.”

Ma­haraj was one of the names tout­ed for the po­si­tion.

Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, who has worked close­ly with Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the Op­po­si­tion bench, said he too did not feel snubbed.

“I sup­port the de­ci­sion of the po­lit­i­cal leader. We are a strong and unit­ed body go­ing for­ward and as we said in the cam­paign, when UNC wins, every­body wins.”

Ho­sein added, “We trust in the ap­point­ment by the Prime Min­is­ter, she led us through a suc­cess­ful cam­paign with very strate­gic de­ci­sions be­ing made, and I am very con­fi­dent and have all faith and trust in the PM with the ap­point­ment of Mr Je­re­mie.”

For­mer AGs re­act

But for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas, who held the post briefly in 2015 dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, be­lieves a young par­lia­men­tar­i­an like Ho­sein stands to ben­e­fit from Je­re­mie’s ap­point­ment.

“What the Prime Min­is­ter may do is ap­point one of her younger mem­bers of Par­lia­ment as Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs so that they could shad­ow an ex­pe­ri­enced At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and use that as a way of suc­ces­sion plan­ning.”

Nicholas said he was im­pressed by Je­re­mie’s first in­ter­view as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“One of the things that he ac­tu­al­ly men­tioned that I picked up yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) was the fact that he was con­cerned about the lev­el of fees be­ing paid to at­tor­neys. This is ac­tu­al­ly some­thing I share, be­cause I be­lieve that there needs to be a dif­fer­ent sys­tem on how at­tor­neys are paid, as well as how they are ap­point­ed by the State to rep­re­sent the State. And I think the UK mod­el is a good mod­el for that. And it is some­thing I have spo­ken about over ten years ago. So if it is that he’s go­ing to take on that chal­lenge, then ab­solute­ly, that’s a good thing.”

An­oth­er for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, be­lieves Je­re­mie is what the coun­try needs at this time.

“We are in cri­sis mode and Je­re­mie has the knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence and vi­sion to re­form and lead the much-need­ed trans­for­ma­tion of the le­gal sys­tem so that jus­tice can be served. Pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice has been shak­en. He must ac­cel­er­ate the changes that are in the process of be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem so that we can take full ad­van­tage of the tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ments in the le­gal field. His lead­er­ship is both nec­es­sary and time­ly.”

How­ev­er, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, was more mea­sured in his re­sponse to Je­re­mie’s ap­point­ment.

“I could say that Mr Je­re­mie has the qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be an AG be­cause he was an AG be­fore. But I want to be hon­est with you, in the past I made crit­i­cisms of him based on what he did and I stand by that. I can’t re­mem­ber all of it. Re­mem­ber the Chief Jus­tice af­fair with (Sat) Shar­ma? When there were at­tempts to re­move Shar­ma?

“But when I was in pol­i­tics, I crit­i­cised him for some of the things he did and when I came out of pol­i­tics, with re­spect to some of the things he did, I crit­i­cised him.”

Ef­forts to reach Op­po­si­tion Leader-elect Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, for­mer AG Faris Al-Rawi and Camille Robin­son-Reg­is were un­suc­cess­ful.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, when con­tact­ed, said, “I have al­ready ex­pressed my views,” on Je­re­mie.

At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Diego Mar­tin in April, af­ter Je­re­mie mount­ed a UNC plat­form, Row­ley said, “I don’t have to tell you, how many vol­umes of doc­u­ments ex­ist in this coun­try from the UNC at­tack­ing John Je­re­mie and say­ing that he is un­fit for of­fice. I too came to that con­clu­sion.”

He al­so said, then, his for­mer Cab­i­net col­league was a “dog in the PNM.” Je­re­mie has since said that he is a hu­man be­ing, and the for­mer prime min­is­ter may pos­si­bly have anger is­sues.