The Law As­so­ci­a­tion does not have an of­fi­cial po­si­tion on the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act 2011. In fact, the as­so­ci­a­tion will be meet­ing next Tues­day to dis­cuss the mat­ter. Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion Seenath Jairam, SC, in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, said he could not com­ment on be­half of the as­so­ci­a­tion, but will do so in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty. Jairam chas­tised those who op­posed the act. "As far as I am con­cerned, they (Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans) were all asleep. What will hap­pen to these poor boys and girls in­car­cer­at­ed for so long and are lan­guish­ing in jail? For some, ten years is a long time..." he said. Stat­ing jus­tice must be swift, Jairam said the me­dia were on­ly fo­cus­ing on "Steve and Ish," as though they are the on­ly peo­ple the act would have ben­e­fit­ed.

On Wednes­day, Par­lia­ment re­pealed the con­tentious sec­tion, af­ter con­dem­na­tion by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC, head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Pamela El­der, SC, the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, oth­er of­fi­cials and mem­bers of the pub­lic. The clause in the sec­tion would en­able the dis­missal of cas­es which were be­fore the courts for the last ten years ex­clud­ing blood crimes (mur­der, rape, etc). Among those who would have ben­e­fit­ed by the leg­is­la­tion were Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fi­nanciers and busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son. Both men are want­ed in the US on a se­ries of fraud-re­lat­ed charges. They ap­pealed the de­ci­sion not to be ex­tra­dit­ed and won. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan did not ap­peal the rul­ing, since, he said, the men would face a "speedy tri­al in T&T." How­ev­er, with the act be­ing pro­claimed the men would have been freed in the lo­cal courts. A promi­nent at­tor­ney who did not want to be iden­ti­fied said the Unit­ed States is well with­in its rights to reap­ply for the busi­ness­men's ex­trad­tion. How­ev­er, he said more than like­ly the US will be look­ing at the progress of cas­es in­volv­ing the men be­fore the T&T courts.

So far, the men have pe­ti­tioned the High Court seek­ing to have the fraud charges against them dis­missed. Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly said af­ter the re­peal: "What is like­ly to fol­low if the ap­pli­ca­tions for dis­charge are re­fused, as they are like­ly to be in view of the re­peal, then I an­tic­i­pate chal­lenges to the va­lid­i­ty of the leg­is­la­tion will be time-con­sum­ing and ex­pen­sive." Daly said such chal­lenges do not nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­low "the belts and braces that have been put in­to the re­peal leg­is­la­tion will with­stand a chal­lenge in the courts." The for­mer law as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the law as­so­ci­a­tion is yet to of­fer the pub­lic any guid­ance in the mat­ter. For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Karl Hud­son-Phillips, QC, when con­tact­ed said he is wait­ing to hear the com­ments of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion. "The pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion should speak first in all mat­ters like this. It is an im­por­tant is­sue on which the Law As­so­ci­a­tion should have a re­lease," he said. Hud­son-Phillips said he want­ed to ap­plaud the stance of El­der in her ca­pac­i­ty as Crim­i­nal Bar head for mak­ing a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion through­out the dis­cus­sions of Sec­tion 34.