SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

A state­ment pur­port­ing to come from a group of at­tor­neys call­ing for a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) to con­sid­er a mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence in At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nal Ar­mour, has been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

How­ev­er, de­spite nu­mer­ous ef­forts, Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed has not been able to con­firm whether the req­ui­si­tion is le­git­i­mate or which at­tor­neys would have signed on to it.

“We the un­der­signed mem­bers of the law as­so­ci­a­tion wish to sum­mon a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing (pur­suant to Rule 23 of the First Sched­ule part A of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act) of the law as­so­ci­a­tion for the pur­pos­es of con­sid­er­ing a mo­tion to ex­press no con­fi­dence in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Mr Regi­nald Ar­mour SC, and to call up­on him to im­me­di­ate­ly re­sign from his po­si­tion as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the mes­sage stat­ed.

The Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act states a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing may be con­vened by the Coun­cil of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion or by req­ui­si­tion of any 25 mem­bers of the As­so­ci­a­tion.

A se­nior at­tor­ney, speak­ing off the record, told Guardian Me­dia for such a req­ui­si­tion to be made, at­tor­neys who are sig­na­to­ries must sign a phys­i­cal copy of the req­ui­si­tion.

Once a req­ui­si­tion has got­ten the re­quired num­ber of sig­na­tures, it is then sent to the LATT.

The LATT’s Coun­cil is then re­quired to con­vene a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing with­in 30 days.

Guardian Me­dia tried con­tact­ing LATT pres­i­dent, Sophia Chote, with­out suc­cess. Ef­forts to reach vice-pres­i­dent, Ra­jiv Per­sad, were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

Ar­mour did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages to his cell­phone.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Sen­a­tor, at­tor­ney Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, who said she too had seen the pur­port­ed req­ui­si­tion cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia but said she too did not know of its ori­gin.

She said no one had reached out to her to sign the req­ui­si­tion or in­form her of its con­tents.

This pur­port­ed req­ui­si­tion comes on the heels of mul­ti­ple ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ed on Sat­ur­day that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al had re­signed.

Sev­er­al of those mes­sages claimed the Gov­ern­ment had col­lapsed, as the Con­sti­tu­tion states an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Prime Min­is­ter must be in of­fice to con­sti­tute a Gov­ern­ment.

The calls for Ar­mour’s res­ig­na­tion stemmed from the May 2 judge­ment of US Judge, Reem­ber­to Di­az, who dis­qual­i­fied Ar­mour and the Amer­i­can law firm, Se­quor Law from rep­re­sent­ing T&T in a civ­il for­fei­ture mat­ter against for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung and oth­ers stem­ming from the Pi­ar­co air­port cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Di­az’s judge­ment came af­ter a pe­ti­tion from Kuei Tung called for the law­suit to be struck out and for the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of both Ar­mour and Se­qour as Ar­mour had rep­re­sent­ed Kuei Tung and his then-com­pan­ion Re­nee Pierre in par­al­lel crim­i­nal mat­ters in T&T be­tween 2003 to 2008.

Kuei Tung sub­mit­ted that Ar­mour would have dis­cussed “sen­si­tive at­tor­ney-client priv­i­leged in­for­ma­tion” with Se­quor when he took over as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al from Faris Al-Rawi on March 16.

Ar­mour’s af­fi­davit in re­sponse to the pe­ti­tion stat­ed he act­ed as a ju­nior at­tor­ney in Kuei Tung’s mat­ter, with his role lim­it­ed to note-tak­ing and le­gal re­search.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al me­dia re­ports and court tran­scripts seem to con­flict with Ar­mour’s state­ments, prompt­ing lo­cal calls for Ar­mour’s res­ig­na­tion amid claims he had com­mit­ted per­jury.

The US judge found the Flori­da Rules of Pro­fes­sion­al Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, which pro­hibits an at­tor­ney from serv­ing as coun­sel on be­half of a client who is di­rect­ly ad­verse to a for­mer client in the same or sub­stan­tial­ly same pro­ceed­ings, were breached and dis­qual­i­fied both Se­quor and Ar­mour from the mat­ter.

The Gov­ern­ment has since hired an­oth­er US firm, White and Case, while Se­quor has ap­pealed Di­az’s de­ci­sion.

Ar­mour’s pub­lic com­ments have been lim­it­ed and he re­leased a press state­ment on June 8, say­ing he will main­tain his si­lence while the ap­peal is pend­ing.

SC Sinanan: Law As­so­ci­a­tion must act

Guardian Me­dia reached out to sev­er­al at­tor­neys yes­ter­day for com­ment on the calls for Ar­mour to re­sign.

Se­nior Coun­sel Avory Sinanan has called the Coun­cil of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion to gal­va­nize it­self in­to ac­tion.

Sinanan said this is­sue touch­es on the in­tegri­ty of the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“The Coun­cil needs to make a de­c­la­ra­tion be­cause what has tak­en place has brought the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in­to dis­re­pute,” Sinanan said.

He said the Coun­cil needs to ex­am­ine the facts of this sit­u­a­tion. He said such an ex­am­i­na­tion does not con­sti­tute a witch hunt against the AG.

Sinanan said such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the As­so­ci­a­tion could al­so ex­on­er­ate Ar­mour of wrong­do­ing.

“This is al­so for the pro­tec­tion of the AG, sup­pose the Mi­a­mi Judge got it wrong? The Law As­so­ci­a­tion and the Coun­cil will be able to vin­di­cate the AG, it is not a witch hunt, it is of suf­fi­cient im­port and na­tion­al con­cern that there be some kind of in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and that the Law As­so­ci­a­tion takes an ac­tive role in de­ter­min­ing whether what is be­ing said has any mer­it,” Sinanan said.

He said al­though the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act does not al­low for the As­so­ci­a­tion’s dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee to take ac­tion against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the As­so­ci­a­tion can make a pub­lic call to the AG to re­sign if he is guilty of wrong­do­ing.

At­tor­ney Mar­tin George said if the al­le­ga­tions of per­jury were true, it was trou­bling and con­cern­ing as the AG holds the third-high­est of­fice in the coun­try and is the tit­u­lar head of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion.

“As a re­sult of that role, the AG has an ex­treme­ly oner­ous du­ty placed up­on him­self and that it is some­thing that you ac­cept by ac­cept­ing the of­fice of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, you ac­cept that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to al­ways be ful­ly trans­par­ent, up­right, ac­cu­rate and scrupu­lous­ly hon­est and truth­ful in all your pub­lic de­c­la­ra­tions, state­ments and in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to state­ments as re­gards court pro­ceed­ings or court mat­ters,” George said.

He said this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty did not di­min­ish be­cause the mat­ter was be­ing heard in an in­ter­na­tion­al court.

George said the cur­rent ‘deaf­en­ing si­lence’ from Ar­mour should not be ac­cept­ed by the pop­u­la­tion. He said the on­ly way for Amour to emerge un­scathed is for him to clear the air.

“If he is not able to pro­vide such ev­i­dence, ex­pla­na­tion, or pro­vide any­thing that can ex­cul­pate him in that man­ner, it would ap­pear that those who are mak­ing the calls for even greater sanc­tion, in­clud­ing those who are mak­ing the calls for him to re­sign, they may have tremen­dous fod­der in their mills, and grist in their mills, to be able to sub­stan­ti­ate such calls,” George said.

He said if the AG was un­able to prop­er­ly ex­plain and ex­on­er­ate him­self, he should take the ho­n­ourable step of re­sign­ing.

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