Al­most a week af­ter fac­ing cor­rup­tion-re­lat­ed charges, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan SC and Ger­ald Ramdeen were in the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court on Fri­day rep­re­sent­ing Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal in his con­sti­tu­tion­al claim against the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

Ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in his at­tor­neys, Mooni­lal said he was not fazed by their le­gal trou­bles.

“I’m hap­py to re­port that both my at­tor­neys are avail­able to­day and in the court bat­tling and I must as a hu­man na­ture sin­gle out and com­pli­ment Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ger­ald Ramdeen who notwith­stand­ing their very re­cent trou­bles have both ap­peared this morn­ing in court and con­tin­ue to make very, very strong sub­mis­sions to the court on my be­half and on be­half of con­stituents of Oropouche.

“I think it speaks tremen­dous­ly to their own char­ac­ter and men­tal and phys­i­cal tough­ness that they are back to work in the cour­t­house and con­duct­ing this case in a very vo­cif­er­ous man­ner.”

Mooni­lal is chal­leng­ing the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee on the grounds that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were vi­o­lat­ed. The MP was re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee as a re­sult of a state­ment he made dur­ing cross-talk with Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds in Par­lia­ment last Oc­to­ber.

He is claim­ing that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were vi­o­lat­ed be­cause the Speak­er was bi­ased in her rul­ing based on com­ments she made. He is con­tend­ing that it was un­fair for her to sit as the chair­man of the Com­mit­tee to hear the al­le­ga­tion against him. Af­ter the claim was filed an un­der­tak­ing was giv­en by the Speak­er that the Com­mit­tee will not con­vene to deal with the al­le­ga­tion against Mooni­lal.

How­ev­er, the Speak­er has since with­drawn that un­der­tak­ing.

The pre­sid­ing judge, Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son-King, how­ev­er, not­ed that if any moves were made against Mooni­lal while the mat­ter is be­fore the court, his ap­pli­ca­tion for an in­junc­tion could be re­ac­ti­vat­ed.

Mooni­lal’s at­tor­neys made sev­er­al ev­i­den­tial ob­jec­tions on Fri­day and the judge re­served her rul­ing.

Mooni­lal's le­gal team al­so in­cludes at­tor­neys Vishal Seusaran and Asha Har­ri­paul.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Dou­glas Mendes SC, Michael Quam­i­na, in­struct­ed by Kendra Mark while the Speak­er is rep­re­sent­ed by Deb­o­rah Peake SC and Ravi Heffes-Doon. The par­ties were giv­en in­struc­tions to file sub­mis­sions and the mat­ters as ad­journed to Ju­ly 9.

Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen are charged with three con­spir­a­cy of­fences re­lat­ed to an al­leg­ed le­gal fees kick­back scam. Ram­lo­gan is on $1.2 mil­lion bail while Ramdeen is on $1.5 mil­li­on in bail. They are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates' Court on June 28.