Richard Lord

Chair­man of the Sec­tion 34 Round­table David Ab­du­lah yes­ter­day made a re­newed call for the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count to the na­tion on the "sur­rep­ti­tious and se­lec­tive" procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Bill 2011.

He made the call min­utes af­ter Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er dis­missed an ap­pli­ca­tion brought by in­sur­ance com­pa­ny Mar­itime Life (Caribbean) Ltd and busi­ness­men Steve Fer­gu­son and Ameer Edoo that their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were in­fringed by the re­peal of the said leg­is­la­tion.Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at City Hall, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Ab­du­lah said the procla­ma­tion of the leg­is­la­tion in Au­gust last year sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der­mined the Con­sti­tu­tion and was an abuse of pub­lic of­fice.

Ab­du­lah, who is al­so the leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), said the Round­table "re­mains com­mit­ted to pur­sue and hold to ac­count those who are re­spon­si­ble for this at­tack on our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions."He said the procla­ma­tion was "tan­ta­mount to a con­spir­a­cy to ma­nip­u­late the Par­lia­ment, the Cab­i­net and the Pres­i­dent to fa­cil­i­tate the in­ter­est of a few."

He claimed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar failed to pro­vide the re­quired an­swers on the mat­ter to for­mer pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards a few months ago, and said this was a demon­stra­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was "not in the least con­cerned with good gov­er­nance and in­deed is in­tent on pur­su­ing the in­ter­est of a few favoured per­sons above the na­tion­al in­ter­est."

Ab­du­lah said he re­mained con­fi­dent Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona will ad­dress the mat­ter un­der Sec­tion 81 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which re­quires the Prime Min­is­ter to pro­vide an­swers to the Pres­i­dent on such spe­cif­ic mat­ters he may re­quest.

An­oth­er Round­table mem­ber is the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who al­so said the Gov­ern­ment must ac­count for the procla­ma­tion of the leg­is­la­tion. He said al­so the Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain why the leg­is­la­tion was im­ple­ment­ed and the in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­ble for that de­ci­sion be made to ac­count to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.