Leader of the Opposition Dr Keith Rowley says the Prime Minister's dismissal of Herbert Volney as Justice Minister was a "nice try" but was not good enough. He said the entire Government should resign and call fresh elections. Rowley spoke at a news conference at the Opposition's office on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yesterday. "We want to put the Government on notice that from here on in, for whatever time they remain in office, they can expect absolutely no co-operation from the Opposition," Rowley said.
"We will not co-operate with the Government on any matter. We will isolate them as long as they remain in office. They do not deserve to be in office, they have betrayed the trust of the people of T&T and they must leave office. "We want to put the country on notice that we are not prepared to accept without protest a government that is so stained and so shamed."
He said the PNM would now move to mobilise all the forces opposed to the Government to demand that fresh elections be called. Rowley said:?"We are calling for elections now." He said the effect of the August proclamation of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act was "perverting the course of justice."
He said the Prime Minister was forced to fire Volney after her initial decision to refrain from speaking on the issue publicly did not work, and "it is people power, public pressure" that forced her to make a public statement. He said all the PM had achieved was to "further confuse and protect wrongdoing in her Cabinet." Rowley said Persad-Bissessar tried to exonerate Attorney General Anand Ramlogan from responsibility for the early proclamation of Section 34 of the act.
Persad-Bissessar, in an address to the nation on Thursday night, said Ramlogan was not in the country when the Cabinet note was discussed and approved. But Rowley said Ramlogan returned to T&T on August 4 and the Cabinet note was dated August 6, and it was insulting for the Prime Minister "to use that as a basis to exonerate the Attorney General."
Rowley said: "So if the Attorney General has nothing to do with law passing through the Cabinet... what do we need an Attorney General for?" Rowley said the People's Partnership Government must go. "We will not accept the scrap of Volney's head, we want the head of everybody who shepherded this through the system," he said.