Richard Lord

The ju­di­cia­ry of T&T is ex­press­ing "grave con­cern" over com­ments by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley on the de­ci­sion of High Court judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh to quash the Unit­ed States ex­tra­di­tion or­der for busi­ness­men Ish Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son, who were want­ed to an­swer mon­ey laun­der­ing charges.The ju­di­cia­ry said it rep­re­sent­ed "an un­war­rant­ed and un­jus­ti­fied at­tack on judge" and was "po­ten­tial­ly in­ju­ri­ous to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Row­ley was asked at a news con­fer­ence at his Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, of­fice on Tues­day if the rul­ing was a de­feat for At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. He replied: "I wouldn't term it a de­feat for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al...if there is any de­feat it would be for jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go."Row­ley al­so said it was the AG who "fa­cil­i­tat­ed the whole process...So hav­ing got the ex­pect­ed re­sult, I wouldn't call it a de­feat."

In a two-page state­ment is­sued by Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er Jones P Madeira, the ju­di­cia­ry said since Row­ley had not de­nied the re­port, "one can on­ly con­clude that the con­tents, in­clud­ing the di­rect as­ser­tions, are ac­cu­rate."Madeira said it was on that con­text that "the ju­di­cia­ry ex­pressed its ab­hor­rence of the in­nu­en­does by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion of col­lu­sion be­tween the judge and by ex­ten­sion, the ju­di­cia­ry, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the de­ci­sion which was ar­rived at and hand­ed down in the court."

Madeira fur­ther stat­ed that the ju­di­cia­ry re­spect­ed the right of every cit­i­zen to ex­press dis­agree­ment with and even crit­i­cise the rul­ings of the court.He said the "im­pu­ta­tions of mo­tive and even wrong­do­ing on the part of Dr Row­ley's state­ments are not on­ly out­side of the bounds of re­spect and ob­jec­tiv­i­ty that should at­tend the ex­er­cise of those rights, but al­so rep­re­sent an un­war­rant­ed and un­jus­ti­fied at­tack on the judge."

He al­so said Row­ley's com­ments "are ad­di­tion­al­ly po­ten­tial­ly in­ju­ri­ous to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is even more dis­turb­ing when such com­ments em­anate from an of­fi­cial who is pledged to up­hold the con­sti­tu­tion and the laws of the coun­try."The state­ment end­ed with an as­sur­ance that the ju­di­cia­ry re­mained com­mit­ted "to a fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent ju­di­cial sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go and will not be side­tracked from this mis­sion by un­for­tu­nate state­ments such as those by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion."

And At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan yes­ter­day wrote to the pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, Dana See­ta­hal, SC, on the mat­ter.He said Row­ley's com­ments, in­di­vid­u­al­ly and cu­mu­la­tive­ly, "can on­ly be tak­en to mean that the court was cor­rupt."Ram­lo­gan added: "The 'de­liv­ery' is the judg­ment and the out­ra­geous sug­ges­tion that the judge must, by clear im­pli­ca­tion, have been bought or in­flu­enced ex­tra ju­di­cial­ly."Ram­lo­gan, in his let­ter, said: "It goes fur­ther in stat­ing that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al 'fa­cil­i­tat­ed' the process."

He said crit­i­cism of a judg­ment was a fun­da­men­tal right and he was not seek­ing to cur­tail it, but he in­sist­ed "a state­ment that the court is cor­rupt hits at the in­tegri­ty of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the hon­esty of a dis­tin­guished judge."