At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has called on for­mer so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well to clar­i­fy whether she sent an Oc­to­ber 28, 2013 let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the prison lit­i­ga­tion is­sue as she had ad­vised him that it was sent and had for­ward­ed a signed copy to his of­fice.The AG made the call in a state­ment last night, af­ter Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well yes­ter­day is­sued a press re­lease on the let­ters she wrote to the PM in Au­gust 2013 seek­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her claims of col­lu­sion in­volv­ing at­tor­neys in prison lit­i­ga­tion cas­es and her ap­par­ent sub­se­quent amend­ment to this.In her state­ment yes­ter­day, which seemed to be spurred by con­tin­ued rag­ing pub­lic de­bate over the mat­ter, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said at no time did she with­draw her call for a probe in­to the mat­ter.She con­firmed she did draft a let­ter, head­ed "Con­fi­den­tial and With­out Prej­u­dice", on the is­sue but she said she was "no longer in a po­si­tion to have the records checked to de­ter­mine whether it was sent."

Ques­tions about the is­sue have arisen af­ter an Au­gust 30, 2013 let­ter by Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well to the Prime Min­is­ter emerged in the me­dia re­cent­ly.In that first let­ter, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­quest­ed a probe in­to at­tor­neys in­volved in lit­i­ga­tion against the State.She claimed there were con­cerns about a breach of pro­fes­sion­al ethics for in­di­rect or di­rect fi­nan­cial gain, adding she was con­cerned the at­tor­neys were en­gaged in an un­eth­i­cal busi­ness ven­ture.An un­signed Oc­to­ber 2013 let­ter pur­port­ed­ly re­tract­ed this re­quest, but Ram­lo­gan sub­se­quent­ly pro­duced a signed copy of a let­ter writ­ten by Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well to the PM, where Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well al­leged­ly with­drew her call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.There was re­ceipt ac­knowl­edged by the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dat­ed No­vem­ber 2013.Break­ing her si­lence on the is­sue, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well, now in pri­vate prac­tice, yes­ter­day is­sued a state­ment on a let­ter­head bear­ing the name "Key­stone Law".

Probe Crit­i­cal

Hon­ey­well said con­cerns over prison lit­i­ga­tion mat­ters were brought to her at­ten­tion by the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion and oth­er con­cerned par­ties.She said be­cause she con­sid­ered the is­sue to be con­fi­den­tial, she di­rect­ed her con­cerns di­rect­ly to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, adding the main aim of this was to get a probe con­duct­ed.She said the AG, af­ter the let­ter was passed to him by the PM, called her in­to a meet­ing and the mat­ter was dis­cussed. She said dur­ing those dis­cus­sions, the AG as­sured her steps would be tak­en to ad­dress all of the con­cerns she raised.

She added: "It was agreed that there should be a gen­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to prison lit­i­ga­tion which would take in­to ac­count the con­cerns of prison of­fi­cers as well as in­ves­ti­gate whether prac­tices in prison lit­i­ga­tion were un­der­min­ing the fair prospects of the State in de­fend­ing such mat­ters."At no time did I then, or at any time since in­di­cate that I no longer saw the need for such in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well con­firmed that she did draft a sec­ond let­ter to the PM to let her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) know that the mat­ters she (Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well) raised were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.How­ev­er, she said she was now un­able to say whether this let­ter was ever dis­patched.Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well point­ed out that she be­lieved the PM was no longer a part of the mat­ter, since the PM had placed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his hands. She said now that she was in pri­vate prac­tice, she al­so wished not to in­ter­vene any fur­ther in the mat­ter.Ef­forts to con­tact Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well yes­ter­day for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on var­i­ous as­pects of the is­sue – in­clud­ing her "con­fi­den­tial rea­sons" for writ­ing the PM over the AG's head and if the prison is­sue had any­thing to do with her res­ig­na­tion – were un­suc­cess­ful as calls to her cell­phone and land line went unan­swered.

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well's State­ment

Mat­ters to be ad­dressed con­cern­ing prison lit­i­ga­tion were brought to my at­ten­tion by con­cerned per­sons, in­clud­ing the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion.For con­fi­den­tial rea­sons I felt it nec­es­sary to bring these is­sues di­rect­ly to the at­ten­tion of the Hon Prime Min­is­ter and did so by way of the Au­gust 30, 2013 let­ter which was sent un­der con­fi­den­tial cov­er but is now in the pub­lic do­main.The main thrust of the let­ter was sim­ply to get ac­tion on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mat­ters ad­verse­ly af­fect­ing the State's de­fence in prison lit­i­ga­tion.The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al hav­ing re­ceived the let­ter, sent to him by the Prime Min­is­ter, called me to dis­cuss it and dur­ing dis­cus­sions I was as­sured that steps would be tak­en to have all of the con­cerns raised ad­dressed.

It was agreed that there should be a gen­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to prison lit­i­ga­tion which would take in­to ac­count the con­cerns of prison of­fi­cers as well as in­ves­ti­gate whether prac­tices in prison lit­i­ga­tion were un­der­min­ing the fair prospects of the State in de­fend­ing such mat­ters.At no time did I then, or at any time since in­di­cate that I no longer saw the need for such in­ves­ti­ga­tion.I was re­quired to let the Prime Min­is­ter know that the mat­ter I had raised with her was be­ing ad­dressed and her fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion was not need­ed. I did draft the let­ter, head­ed "con­fi­den­tial and With­out Prej­u­dice", a copy of which I saw pub­lished in the Sun­day Ex­press but I am no longer in a po­si­tion to have the records checked to de­ter­mine whether it was sent.In any event the Prime Min­is­ter, hav­ing tak­en ac­tion as she did, I felt I had no fur­ther role to play. The mat­ter was now in the hands of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. As an at­tor­ney-at-law in pri­vate prac­tice and hav­ing demit­ted of­fice as so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al, I do not pro­pose to in­ter­vene fur­ther in the mat­ter."

More In­fo:Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well was ap­point­ed so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al in 2010 un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, af­ter the post was va­cant for four years. She re­signed from the AG's of­fice No­vem­ber 12, 2013, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 2014.When Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well had re­signed she told the T&T Guardian she re­signed for "per­son­al rea­sons" and that she did not make any re­port of al­leged cor­rup­tion in her res­ig­na­tion let­ter.She had said then that she and the AG were on cor­dial terms and she had found him to be a per­son she did not have a prob­lem with. She said she want­ed to re­serve com­ment on her res­ig­na­tion.Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well's let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter on the prison lit­i­ga­tion is­sues was dat­ed Au­gust 30, 2013, three months be­fore her res­ig­na­tion.