Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don's in­tegri­ty was com­pro­mised by his re­cent pri­vate meet­ing at his home with Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Speak­ing with re­porters in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Ram­lo­gan said ques­tions about Gor­don's fu­ture at the com­mis­sion were al­so now be­ing raised.

Row­ley went to Gor­don's home in Glen­coe on May 15 for the dis­cus­sions, a few days be­fore he pre­sent­ed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the House, Row­ley re­vealed the de­tails of 31 e-mails he claimed showed mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice by high-rank­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in re­la­tion to the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co.

Yes­ter­day, Ram­lo­gan said the se­cre­cy be­hind the meet­ing had not gone down well with­in the Gov­ern­ment.

"The whole thing reeks of some kind of po­lit­i­cal con­spir­a­cy against the Gov­ern­ment," Ram­lo­gan said.

Not­ing it seemed to be a "clan­des­tine" meet­ing, he said: "Se­ri­ous ques­tions go to the very in­tegri­ty of the of­fice he (Gor­don) holds now and whether it's been so erod­ed that he should con­tin­ue sit­ting."

Ram­lo­gan quick­ly added that he was mak­ing no judg­ment on whether Gor­don should leave of­fice.

He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that Gor­don and Row­ley must re­veal the facts of the meet­ing.

"There needs to be a full, frank and can­did ex­pla­na­tion by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and the chair­man on what was the burn­ing is­sue that in the dead of night, in such a clan­des­tine and sur­rep­ti­tious man­ner, they had to have this meet­ing over a drink at his res­i­dence."

Ram­lo­gan said Row­ley had cir­cum­vent­ed all the chan­nels and pro­ce­dures pro­vid­ed in the law for such a meet­ing to take place.

The law pro­vid­ed for Row­ley to write to the reg­is­trar of the com­mis­sion re­quest­ing such a meet­ing, he said, and there was "a very com­pre­hen­sive, de­tailed pro­ce­dur­al code" for an of­fi­cial in pub­lic life to re­quest a meet­ing with the com­mis­sion.

A let­ter should be writ­ten to the reg­is­trar for such a meet­ing to take place, he said.

"You can­not ar­ro­gate un­to your­self the right to vis­it the chair­man at his home, to be call­ing for him, as Gor­don claims. That is not the way to do it."

Such ac­tion, he felt, "un­der­mines the rule of law and the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act and the in­de­pen­dence of the process."

Ram­lo­gan asked what the pop­u­la­tion would have said if it was he or the PM who had met with Gor­don in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances.

He said Row­ley was "the sub­ject of or part" of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the e-mail scan­dal and ought not to have sought such an au­di­ence at Gor­don's home.

Row­ley was re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges for al­leged con­tempt af­ter pre­sent­ing the 31 e-mails to the House. That probe is still tak­ing place.

Ram­lo­gan said he al­so want­ed to know why Gor­don met with Row­ley, "who is the cen­tral pro­tag­o­nist in the e-mail fi­as­co and a pos­si­ble sub­ject of in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the com­mis­sion."

He said he was "deeply con­cerned" about the meet­ing, as it would give rise to "grave pub­lic dis­qui­et," and it was sig­nif­i­cant that the meet­ing took place short­ly be­fore the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion de­bate.

Al­so of note, he said, was that the meet­ing took place when "there is in fact no In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion." Un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, he said, a chair­man or a deputy chair­man and at least two oth­er mem­bers would com­prise a quo­rum.

The AG said if the e-mail is­sue reach­es the com­mis­sion for in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Gor­don may have to re­cuse him­self.

He in­sist­ed that the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared for any in­ves­tiga­tive body, na­tion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al, to probe the e-mails, and main­tained they were fab­ri­cat­ed by the PNM.

Gor­don was un­avail­able for com­ment when the T&T Guardian tried to reach him yes­ter­day, as calls to his phone went unan­swered. How­ev­er, on Thurs­day, he re­leased an aide-mem­oir of the meet­ing be­tween him­self and Row­ley through the com­mis­sion's reg­is­trar, Mar­tin Far­rell.