Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi is call­ing on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to apol­o­gise in writ­ing and pro­vide char­i­ta­ble do­na­tions on be­half of Kris­tel Marie Ram­nath.Al-Rawi's call came dur­ing yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on the Li­bel and Defama­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, which was pre­sent­ed by Ram­lo­gan and seeks to abol­ish the crim­i­nal of­fence of ma­li­cious defam­a­to­ry li­bel.

He was com­ment­ing on the is­sue which oc­curred in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day, when Ram­lo­gan had re­port­ed­ly said the PNM's St Joseph MP, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, was ag­i­tat­ed be­cause a for­mer girl­friend, Kris­tel, was de­prived of his ser­vices on Valen­tine's night.Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, that it was just pi­cong and giv­en in the cut-and-thrust of po­lit­i­cal talk.But Al-Rawi, who spoke af­ter Ram­lo­gan yes­ter­day, said the mat­ter was not just one of pi­cong and po­lit­i­cal cut-and-thrust.

He said it was a se­ri­ous mat­ter and the AG could not be ex­cused for his at­tack by say­ing Deyals­ingh was thinned-skin or that it was nor­mal cut-and-thrust of pol­i­tics."What we have ob­jec­tions to is the dero­ga­tion and sul­ly­ing of a young la­dy's name," Al-Rawi said.He told leg­is­la­tors if Ram­lo­gan was se­ri­ous about an apol­o­gy he should sub­mit a writ­ten apol­o­gy in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives."It is in­cum­bent on the AG to man up and of­fer the kind of prop­er apol­o­gy that should be of­fered," Al-Rawi in­sist­ed.

He said the AG should al­so con­sid­er "mak­ing some form of char­i­ta­ble do­na­tion to cater for the dero­ga­tion and de­struc­tion of rep­u­ta­tion to the young la­dy."And deal­ing with the bill it­self, Al-Rawi said the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act, which has not been pro­claimed de­spite be­ing passed in 2011, was worse than the Li­bel and Defama­tion Amend­ment Bill.

The Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor said there were pro­vi­sions in the un­pro­claimed bill for me­dia work­ers to face crim­i­nal ac­tion. He said part four of the act dealt with the con­trol of per­son­al in­for­ma­tion in pri­vate en­ti­ties.He said me­dia hous­es would face worse penal­ties if the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act was pro­claimed and op­er­a­tionalised.