Faced with the prospect of possibly having to pay large sums in damages for his self-confessed "reckless" statements against Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, former minister Herbert Volney has finally taken responsibility for the premature passage of Section 34 of the Administration of Justice Act.However, on the basis of the facts as they were ventilated then, there was never any question in the mind of the public that Mr Volney was the one responsible for changing the bill and having it sneaked through the Parliament.
Given his own admission at Tuesday's news conference that he was responsible for fashioning the bill, on the basis of his being an experienced judge and prosecutor in criminal matters, it remains difficult to agree with his characterisation of the passage of Section 34 as "an oversight."Moreover, he took the action, as he admitted, "without the necessary information from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions."
What is more, the Hansard report of the debate indicates that the minister gave an undertaking to the Parliament to ensure the legal infrastructure was in place in advance. Mr Volney read letters into the records of Parliament from his Permanent Secretary which spoke of a June proclamation and not an August proclamation. Why the delay?The questions do not end there: Why did President Maxwell Richards not question the proclamation in August, but in December 2012?
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