Sean Nero

Op­po­si­tion MP for Diego Mar­tin North East Colm Im­bert is view­ing with sus­pi­cion an at­tempt by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment to pass leg­is­la­tion that will give the di­rec­tor of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) ex­parte pow­ers.Mak­ing his con­tri­bu­tion on the amend­ment to the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of T&T Bill 2011 in the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, laid by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Im­bert said the con­cept of ex­parte was creep­ing in­to al­most every piece of leg­is­la­tion which the Gov­ern­ment brought for pas­sage in the Low­er House.He said, while the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) re­luc­tant­ly gave sup­port to ex­parte claus­es in the An­ti-Gang Leg­is­la­tion and the Bail Act, be­cause of the na­ture of these mat­ters, it (PNM) was con­cerned about Clause 11 in the FIU Bill and said that cit­i­zens should be wor­ried.

Im­bert said if the leg­is­la­tion was passed, the di­rec­tor of the FIU would be able to go to the court and state hy­po­thet­i­cal­ly that peo­ple are be­lieved to be en­gaged in sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions and seek an or­der to ob­tain that per­son's bank records."This would be the be­gin­ning of fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism in this coun­try if we al­low a per­son who is in some way an­swer­able to a politi­cian."He said, "No mat­ter how the per­son is ap­point­ed-whether by Cab­i­net or by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion-the de­part­ments of gov­ern­ment are un­der the su­per­vi­sion or di­rec­tion and con­trol of a min­is­ter."

Im­bert added: "And this di­rec­tor will be giv­en the pow­er un­der this law to go be­fore a court in the dead of night, in se­cret, in cam­era and get an or­der with­out the oth­er per­son be­ing giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond and to show rea­son to the courts why it's a friv­o­lous case; why it's mis­chie­vous al­le­ga­tion that's be­ing made against them and tell the court why their bank records should not be dis­closed."Im­bert slammed Ram­lo­gan, who claimed that Clause 11 of the FIU Bill which con­tained the ex­parte sec­tion was mod­elled af­ter the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act 2010.

The Act

Quot­ing from the Amend­ment to the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act No 1, 2010 Sec­tion 11, Im­bert said: "Where a per­son fails or re­fus­es to dis­close any in­for­ma­tion or to pro­duce any doc­u­ments re­quired un­der sub-Sec­tion 2, the Com­mis­sion may ap­ply to the High Court for an or­der to re­quire the per­son to com­ply with the re­quest. "There is no ex­parte in the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act...I can't trust the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Mr Speak­er. I can't trust him."