Do honourable thing Dumas advises Jairam

Do the honourable thing and resign as president of the Law Association.

This is the advice that former head of the Public Service Reginald Dumas is giving Senior Counsel Seenath Jairam.

Dumas, in a letter to the editor said, as a member of the public, he was astounded by the statements of former Attorney General Karl Hudson-Phillips QC, about Jairam’s behaviour, and called on Jairam to resign.

“I must therefore join Mr Hudson-Phillips in saying to Mr Jairam that there is now only one honourable option before him. If he seizes it and seizes it quickly, he may in part redeem himself,” said Dumas. Over the weekend Jairam and Hudson-Phillips got into a verbal clash after Jairam’s acceptance of a brief from the Ministry of Finance.

Jairam, in a previous interview with the T&T Guardian, said  there was no conflict of interest in his representing the Ministry of Finance in the enquiry into Clico, even though he previously represented a group of Clico policyholders. He subsequently returned the brief, saying the public perception, as manifested in the media, made him re-consider that as president of the Law Association, he should lead by example. He maintained there was no conflict of interest.

In calling for Jairam to step down, Dumas said the Law Association “is, or should be seen to be, one of the institutional pillars of the society, especially at a time when so many of those pillars are under siege—a situation which did not begin yesterday, or even in 2010.”

Dumas said it was no good saying only attorneys should be concerned about the association, “as if it were an exclusive private club of limited membership sitting in regal isolation from the rest of society. “Quite the contrary, its members interact on a daily basis  with members of the public—they have to—and members of the public must accordingly have their say on its performance.”