There were no con­grat­u­la­tions but rather con­dem­na­tion from the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) over John Je­re­mie’s ap­point­ment to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

In a strong­ly word­ed press re­lease, the Mick­ela Pan­day-led par­ty de­scribed Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first Cab­i­net se­lec­tion as, “her first mis­step and a de­ci­sion that will stain her ad­min­is­tra­tion from the out­set.”

The PF claimed that Je­re­mie’s track record dur­ing his pre­vi­ous tenure as AG un­der the PNM was one marred by con­tro­ver­sy, ju­di­cial con­dem­na­tion and in­sti­tu­tion­al dis­trust.

The par­ty claimed in 2007 and 2022, the Court of Ap­peal and Privy Coun­cil re­spec­tive­ly con­firmed that Je­re­mie en­gaged in in­ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­fer­ence with crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings to tar­get UNC founder (Bas­deo Pan­day) and the par­ty’s al­lies.

The PF said, “His be­hind-the-scenes machi­na­tions with a for­mer chief mag­is­trate not on­ly vi­o­lat­ed the in­tegri­ty of the ju­di­cial process, they fun­da­men­tal­ly breached the prin­ci­ples of ju­di­cial im­par­tial­i­ty.”

Fur­ther­more, the par­ty said in 2006, Je­re­mie at­tempt­ed to di­rect and pres­sure the for­mer Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to lay charges against Pan­day and oth­ers in the ab­sence of ev­i­dence while seek­ing to usurp the in­de­pen­dence of that of­fice.

The PF said this led to a re­sound­ing vote of no con­fi­dence by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) in 2009.

“Re­spect­ed Se­nior Coun­sel, in­clud­ing Theodore Guer­ra and Desmond Al­lum, pub­licly re­ject­ed his at­tempts to sub­vert pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al in­de­pen­dence. Mr Al­lum even called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to whether Je­re­mie had per­vert­ed the course of jus­tice,” the re­lease said.

But the PF said the great­est be­tray­al came from the new Prime Min­is­ter and se­nior UNC fig­ures who once right­ful­ly con­demned Je­re­mie but are now en­dors­ing him.

“This is not just po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism, it is be­tray­al of the UNC’s own his­to­ry, its loy­al base, and the ideals of jus­tice it once claimed to up­hold.”

The par­ty be­lieves the ap­point­ment is an af­front to democ­ra­cy and the many cit­i­zens who still be­lieve in the rule of law.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Je­re­mie for a re­sponse, but he said he had none. —AS