Douglas Mendes
Ordinarily, I would not be overly concerned that Anand Ramlogan took it upon himself to approach US courts to force Google to provide independent evidence of the e-mails passing between himself and the Prime Minister. The State has no property rights in evidence. It is and should be available to us all. If my client had a million dollars to spare, I would have advised him to do the same.
But Mr Ramlogan is not like any of us. He is the Attorney General (AG). At the time he launched his own proceedings in the US, E-mailgate was under investigation by the police.
It was always clear to all discerning individuals that one sure way to prove or disprove that the offending mails were exchanged between Mr Ramlogan and the Prime Minister was to have access to the place where all e-mails are electronically stored, even if deleted. And it was known from quite early on that Google stored the e-mails for the period under investigation. So anyone with any sense knew that you had to get Google to co-operate.
We have a body called the Central Authority through which requests are made of US law enforcement authorities to assist in the gathering of evidence that may advance a criminal investigation. But the thing is that the Central Authority is located in the AG's chambers. So any request by the police for assistance had to be made through the AG's office.
So, as understandable as it might be that Mr Ramlogan, in his personal capacity, would wish to take proactive steps to prepare his and the Prime Minister's defence, he found himself in a conflict of interest situation.
As it turned out, according to a media report, when the police recently approached the Central Authority for assistance in making a request to Google to preserve the data, there was some unspecified disagreement between the Central Authority and the police over the request, so none had been sent.
To make matters worse, it was initially reported that Mr Ramlogan's lawyers have filed papers in the Integrity Commission's proceedings in the United States noting that the information Mr Ramlogan had already received from Google meant that "there was no need for Google to search the e-mail accounts of Ramlogan and Persad-Bissessar again." They also reserved the right to object if Google intended to comply with the commission's subpoena.
Mr Ramlogan had also initially expressed concern that the commission was seeking information about the email address "anand@gmail.com" (with the "d"), which was not the subject of his own application.But good sense appears to have prevailed and it has now been reported that he has given Google permission to search his records a second time, although it is not clear whether that includes the e-mail address with the "d."
Why did he not simply stay clear of the process and leave the police to do their work, if, as he always claimed, he did not send the e-mails contained in the compilation Dr Rowley presented to the House? Surely no matter who made the application, the result would have been the same.
If it eventually turns out that the offending e-mails were not sent by Mr Ramlogan, even from "anand@gmail.com," he would be entitled to savour the sweet delights of vindication, but only at the cost of polluting the pure streams of the investigative process.
But it is fairly obvious that the motivating factor behind Mr Ramlogan's actions is that he does not trust the police. Neither does the Leader of the Opposition, who did not think it advisable in the first place to furnish them with the e-mail compilation left in his "mailbox." The AG was not satisfied to let the commission do its work either. He preferred to spend one million dollars of his own money, as he claims, to get what both the police and the commission could just as easily obtain.
That lack of trust on Mr Ramlogan's part is partly self-induced. Even before the episode of the "one-on-one" meeting between Mr Gordon and Dr Rowley, he had spent a lot of his time haranguing its members, calling upon this one and that to resign, accusing them of political partisanship. Maybe his strategy was to keep the commission off-guard, to force them to rule in his Government's favour just to prove their independence.
But the fault also lies with politicians of all persuasions who too often use the commission process as a tool to cast aspersions on their opponents. The mere fact of the making of a complaint creates in the public's mind, it is thought, the enduring stench of wrongdoing.
The effect of this cynical misuse of the commission's jurisdiction is that the institution is politicised, its esteem is lowered, and it is starved of the public confidence it needs to operate effectively. Mr Ramlogan's latest manoeuvres contribute to this.
Much the same can be said of the police service. It was a mistake to locate the anti-corruption bureau in the AG's office. Would that not create the perception, if it is not the reality, that the Government is using the police as an instrument to harass its opponents? Add to that the great efforts expended to control the appointment of the Commissioner of Police and the persistent claims that a particular race is under-represented in the police service. All this contributes to mistrust.
We spend a lot of time tweaking our Constitution to establish independent bodies to ensure accountability on the part of our public officials and to root out corruption. But then our politicians spend an equal amount of time denigrating them. The written word in the Constitution is not enough. We need a political culture that fosters respect for our institutions to match.