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Monday, July 14, 2025

Law Association head on Integrity resignation: No reason not to bring back Ventour

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20140211

Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Seenath Jairam, SC, is throw­ing his sup­port be­hind re­tired judge Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour, say­ing there is no rea­son why Ven­tour should not be reap­point­ed to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion as deputy chair­man.Ven­tour, who served for sev­en months on the com­mis­sion, re­signed last Thurs­day to de­liv­er three out­stand­ing judg­ments af­ter be­ing sworn in as a judge for a sin­gle day.He ex­plained in his res­ig­na­tion let­ter that as a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion, he was pre­vent­ed by law from de­liv­er­ing the judg­ments.His res­ig­na­tion meant the work of the com­mis­sion has been halt­ed as there is now no one with a le­gal back­ground on its board as re­quired.

Key in­ves­ti­ga­tions could be tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed, such as the e-mail probe and a re­quest by the Op­po­si­tion for a probe in­to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan's pur­chase of two Range Rover SU­Vs us­ing tax ex­emp­tions as a pub­lic of­fi­cial.Ques­tions al­so have been asked about Ven­tour's lo­cus stan­di for writ­ing judg­ments, since he re­tired from the bench in 2012.But Jairam has in­sist­ed Ven­tour's in­tegri­ty was still in­tact."Why shouldn't he be reap­point­ed to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion? What has he done?"He has done noth­ing wrong. He left the com­mis­sion to de­liv­er the judg­ments and he should be brought back to the com­mis­sion," Jairam ar­gued.He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the mat­ter was "some­what clum­sy" and could have been han­dled bet­ter. But giv­en the sit­u­a­tion, he felt there was lit­tle choice but to have Ven­tour re­turn to the bench to de­liv­er the judg­ments.

Jairam added: "To restart these three mat­ters would be time-con­sum­ing and cost­ly. Giv­en the less­er of the two evils I would have pre­ferred Ven­tour to re­sign, de­liv­er the judg­ment then re­turn to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. "Mr Ven­tour's rep­u­ta­tion has not been di­min­ished. He is al­so fair-mind­ed and that is im­por­tant."A source close to the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day said there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty Ven­tour could be reap­point­ed to the com­mis­sion, adding this was one av­enue which Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona can pur­sue.The source said ow­ing to the na­ture of the mat­ter it should be looked at with some de­gree of ur­gency.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Mervyn Crichlow, when asked about Ven­tour's reap­point­ment or the ap­point­ment of a new mem­ber, said the mat­ter was up to the Pres­i­dent.


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