Akash Sama­roo

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day be­lieves Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment are out to “crush” Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard.

“There is ob­vi­ous­ly pres­sure be­ing put up­on him, I be­lieve the po­lit­i­cal pow­ers can crush him and prob­a­bly will crush him,” he told re­porters when he was in­ter­viewed at a cock­tail re­cep­tion in ho­n­our of new­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day.

Ap­proached for com­ments on Pan­day’s state­ment Dr Row­ley asked: “You all are not se­ri­ous to­day right?”

When re­porters said that they were, he replied: “Okay, I’ll tell you what, I’ll talk to you on Thurs­day, let’s have a press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day right, I promise that.”

Pan­day claimed that Dr Row­ley felt em­pow­ered to go af­ter an in­de­pen­dent of­fice such as the DPP on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion of­fers lit­tle pro­tec­tion from in­ter­fer­ence.

“He can do so be­cause there is no sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, which is my point. He should not be able to do that and he would not be able to do that if there wasn’t a sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween the leg­is­la­ture, the ex­ec­u­tive and the ju­di­cia­ry,” he said.

Pan­day who has made nu­mer­ous calls for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form said the cur­rent sys­tem al­lows for arms of gov­ern­ment to be “man­gled to­geth­er.”

He ex­plained, “When we adopt­ed the British Con­sti­tu­tion what we tried to do was to plant ap­ples in the cane field. It does not ap­ply. What I’m try­ing to say is that the Con­sti­tu­tion we in­her­it­ed is ir­rel­e­vant to our progress.”

The for­mer prime min­is­ter warned that cit­i­zens will be the biggest losers in the cur­rent im­broglio in­volv­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Chief Jus­tice ver­sus the DPP.

He urged the coun­try to take note of how Gas­pard had been tar­get­ed.

“I don’t think any­body can ac­cuse the DPP of cor­rup­tion. It has to do with build­ings, it has to do with staff,” Pan­day said.

He tried to brush off claims that he is de­fend­ing Gas­pard be­cause of the re­cent dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the Pi­ar­co air­port cor­rup­tion case against him and his wife Oma.

“What gives you the im­pres­sion that I said any­thing that sym­pa­this­es with him?” Pan­day asked.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, An­tho­ny Vieira al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the cur­rent im­passe be­ing played out in the pub­lic do­main. He echoed Pan­day’s call for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

“We have to find a mech­a­nism, I think, in ad­di­tion to con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, where in­de­pen­dent of­fices can sit down with per­haps a me­di­a­tor, or in a safe space where they can col­lab­o­rate and come up with mem­o­ran­dums of un­der­stand­ing for the good of the coun­try with­out any­one try­ing to look as if they’re giv­ing or­ders to the oth­ers,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Vieira said he is con­cerned about the im­pact this im­broglio will have on crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“He (Gas­pard) is in a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed of­fice, and hit­ting and be­smirch­ing that of­fice, we’re shoot­ing our­selves in the foot,” he warned.

Sen­a­tor Vieira said he will be bring­ing a mo­tion on the ad­journ­ment in the Up­per House to re­view the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“When we be­came in­de­pen­dent, we would have had the Hugh Wood­ing Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion think­ing things through. When we were be­com­ing a re­pub­lic, we had the Hy­atali Com­mis­sion think­ing things over.

“We are long over­due for an­oth­er hard look at our Con­sti­tu­tion and all as­pects of it, even the in­de­pen­dent bench, but I would say con­sti­tute a com­mis­sion with all the best minds and let them in­ves­ti­gate and make a re­port.”

While he was at the in­au­gu­ra­tion, DPP Gas­pard did not at­tend the re­cep­tion at NA­PA. Al­so ab­sent from the re­cep­tion were Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.