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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Govt minister tipped off Ish

...on im­pli­ca­tions of Sec­tion 34

by

20121013

A well-known gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, sources say, is the one who alert­ed busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh about the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 34. The min­is­ter, who has shared a close friend­ship with Gal­barans­ingh for many years, was privy to dis­cus­sions and the im­pli­ca­tions that Sec­tion 34 would un­leash once it was pro­claimed.

The is­sue of how busi­ness­men and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fi­nanciers Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son knew about the ear­ly procla­ma­tion has so far re­mained a mys­tery, with both men re­main­ing mum. When the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Gal­barans­ingh he said, "I have no com­ment to make on any­thing."

Asked how he found out about the ear­ly procla­ma­tion, Gal­barans­ingh said, "This mat­ter is in the courts and I would rather not say any­thing on it." The min­is­ter could not be reached for com­ment on Fri­day and yes­ter­day, since his phone kept go­ing to voice­mail. A text mes­sage was sent to him re­quest­ing a com­ment, but up to late yes­ter­day he did not re­spond.

Sources said sacked Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney ought not have been the on­ly ca­su­al­ty of the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co, since at least two oth­er min­is­ters with le­gal back­grounds were al­so privy to the leg­is­la­tion and knew of its im­pli­ca­tions. Dur­ing the de­bate to have the sec­tion re­pealed, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Corinne Bap­tiste-McK­night ques­tioned how the men could have gone be­fore a judge to make an ap­pli­ca­tion un­der the sec­tion be­fore the le­gal no­tice had been pub­lished.

Bap­tiste-McK­night not­ed that Sec­tion 34 was on­ly gazetted on Sep­tem­ber 10. How­ev­er, both Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son, as well as oth­ers charged with cor­rup­tion filed ap­pli­ca­tions in the High Court for the charges against them to be dis­missed even be­fore the procla­ma­tion was gazetted.

Asked to com­ment on Bap­tiste-McK­night's ob­ser­va­tion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, at a re­cent grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, said, "The gazetting is not the on­ly way that some­one can be­come aware of it...I can't spec­u­late at all as to how they would come to know about it. I don't even know if what has been said by (Bap­tiste-Mc Knight) is in fact cor­rect."

Af­ter the ear­ly procla­ma­tion there was up­roar from var­i­ous sec­tors. Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie said he had not been in­formed of the con­tentious sec­tion, which was sub­se­quent­ly re­pealed. The Prime Min­is­ter last month an­nounced that she was fir­ing Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney, who pi­lot­ed the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Of­fences) Act 2011.

In her ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained there was no con­spir­a­cy be­hind the act and that Vol­ney had act­ed on his own ac­cord and de­ceived her Cab­i­net. Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said, "The Min­is­ter of Jus­tice had a du­ty to faith­ful­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent the po­si­tion and views of the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice and the DPP. He failed to do so and the Cab­i­net re­lied and act­ed on his as­sur­ances in good faith.

"His fail­ure to do so is a se­ri­ous mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and amounts to ma­te­r­i­al non-dis­clo­sure of rel­e­vant facts to the Cab­i­net, which ef­fec­tive­ly pre­vent­ed it from mak­ing an in­formed de­ci­sion."


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