Renu­ka Singh

Chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Ken Gor­don says the pub­lic fall­out over the sud­den res­ig­na­tion and hasty re-ap­point­ment of com­mis­sion­er Jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour could have been pre­vent­ed if Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona had stat­ed that he (Ven­tour) would be reap­point­ed "lat­er on."In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view on Thurs­day, Gor­don said the is­sue should not erode pub­lic con­fi­dence in the com­mis­sion, but ad­mit­ted that the Ven­tour sit­u­a­tion "might have been han­dled dif­fer­ent­ly."

On Feb­ru­ary 5, Jus­tice Ven­tour sud­den­ly re­signed from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, stir­ring pub­lic out­cry and trig­ger­ing sev­er­al me­dia ar­ti­cles spec­u­lat­ing on the fate of the com­mis­sion af­ter Ven­tour's de­par­ture.

One day lat­er, Ven­tour was sworn in as a tem­po­rary puisne judge of the High Court of Jus­tice of T&T on the ad­vice of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC). He then de­lib­er­at­ed and de­liv­ered judg­ments on three out­stand­ing mat­ters–Mo­ra Ven and Mo­ra Oil Ven­tures Ltd (MOVL) with then-chair­man George Nicholas III vs oust­ed chair­man Kr­ish­na Per­sad and his com­pa­ny Kr­ish­na Per­sad and As­so­ciates Ltd (KPA); the mat­ter of KGC Co Ltd vs Gan­gadeen Per­sad; and the le­gal is­sue be­tween Am­i­na Home­ward vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of T&T.

The ju­di­cia­ry Web site, www.tt­law­courts.org, lists the last two judg­ments but has not pub­lished Ven­tour's judg­ment on the mat­ter be­tween Nicholas and Per­sad.The me­dia, how­ev­er, did re­port that Nicholas was suc­cess­ful in that mat­ter.

Com­mis­sion­er Gor­don:Move on

"If it was said at the time of his res­ig­na­tion that he would have been reap­point­ed lat­er on...that is my own view. I am not re­al­ly pro­nounc­ing on that," Gor­don said.Gor­don then de­fend­ed Ven­tour's reap­point­ment, de­scrib­ing him as an "ex­cel­lent com­mis­sion­er.""He had cer­tain judg­ments to give. There is no prece­dence, many peo­ple have giv­en judg­ments af­ter serv­ing," Gor­don said.He said Ven­tour's res­ig­na­tion and reap­point­ment three weeks lat­er is a non-is­sue.

"Some peo­ple want to keep it alive," he said."One must move on," he said.The Sun­day Guardian sent sev­er­al ques­tions to Pres­i­dent Car­mona re­gard­ing the mat­ter.

QUES­TIONS TO PRES­I­DENT

On March 14, the Sun­day Guardian sent an e-mail to the of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, seek­ing some clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the Ven­tour mat­ter:

1. Was Pres­i­dent Car­mona aware that Jus­tice Ven­tour had out­stand­ing judg­ments be­fore him and would have to re­sign as deputy chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in or­der to de­liv­er them?

2. Was Jus­tice Ven­tour's ap­point­ment to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion made last year with the full knowl­edge that he (Ven­tour) would have to re­sign from the com­mis­sion once an­oth­er com­mis­sion (the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion) ad­vised him that it was ready to have Jus­tice Ven­tour reap­point­ed as a judge in the High Court for a day in or­der for him to de­liv­er three out­stand­ing judg­ments?

3. Did Pres­i­dent Car­mona al­ready de­cide to reap­point Jus­tice Ven­tour as deputy chair­man of the com­mis­sion af­ter the judg­ments were hand­ed down?

To date there has been no re­sponse.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so at­tempt­ed to con­tact Ven­tour but was told that he was not avail­able.