Fran­cis Joseph

?British Queen's Coun­sel Ge­of­frey Robert­son made an un­usu­al re­quest in court yes­ter­day. On be­half of his client, Bas­deo Pan­day, po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, Robert­son asked the as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the rul­ing PNM, Rose Janierre, to sup­ply the court, among oth­er things, with a list of the mem­ber­ship of the PNM. Janierre, a for­mer May­or of Ari­ma, was be­ing cross-ex­am­ined in a ju­di­cial re­view case brought by Pan­day and his wife Oma, over the de­ci­sion of Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet not to re­cuse her­self from hear­ing a bribery case, on the ground of ap­par­ent bias.

Janierre, who has been a mem­ber of the PNM since 1980, was asked whether she knew of Alexan­der Cham­ber­lain Alex­is, a found­ing mem­ber of the PNM and a for­mer min­is­ter in the Er­ic Williams gov­ern­ment, and Es­pinet's fa­ther.

Ques­tioned by Robert­son, Janierre said she had found no res­ig­na­tion or ex­pul­sion of Alex­is from the par­ty. She point­ed out that the records of the PNM were com­put­erised in 1993, so it was like­ly that is­sues deal­ing with the par­ty be­fore that might not have been re­trieved.

Janierre said she knew as a fact that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie was a mem­ber of the PNM, be­cause he joined the par­ty quite re­cent­ly. She said there was a print­out of the list of all PNM mem­bers, all of whom were re­quired to pay dues. If they didn't, they would not be able to vote dur­ing the par­ty's con­ven­tion. The for­mer may­or said she did not know Alex­is. She nev­er saw him at Bal­isi­er House or at par­ty func­tions. Robert­son then re­quest­ed a list of the PNM mem­ber­ship, the life­time mem­bers, and whether Alex­is was a mem­ber of the rul­ing par­ty from its in­cep­tion in 1956.

Janierre agreed, but said it would be te­dious. Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram, who is hear­ing the mat­ter in the Port-of-Spain High Court, asked Janierre to try her best to have the list pre­pared for pre­sen­ta­tion in court this morn­ing.

He even evoked laugh­ter in court when he told Janierre to buy a bot­tle of cof­fee on her way to Bal­isi­er House. He asked that both sides look at the list be­fore the start of the hear­ing. As­sist­ing Robert­son are Anand Be­har­ry­lal and Mick­ela Pan­day. Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Ian Ben­jamin rep­re­sent Es­pinet.

Pan­day, Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, and his wife are charged with ac­cept­ing a bribe of �25,000 from busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Car­los John. He said the com­mit­tal pro­ceed­ings be­gan be­fore Es­pinet on May 31, 2006. It was not un­til Feb­ru­ary 12, 2008, that the Pan­days re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that the mag­is­trate was a trustee and trea­sur­er of an or­gan­i­sa­tion named the Mor­ris Mar­shall De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion, in Laven­tille. They ar­gued that the mag­is­trate nev­er dis­closed her in­volve­ment in the foun­da­tion to any of the par­ties be­fore her.

Robert­son, in his sub­mis­sions, re­vealed that the foun­da­tion was sit­u­at­ed in the con­stituen­cy of Laven­tille, a PNM strong­hold. He point­ed out that Mor­ris Mar­shall was a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the PNM, a par­ty op­posed to Pan­day's UNC. Robert­son said Es­pinet was in­tro­duced to the foun­da­tion by Je­re­mie. He said among the 15 names on the foun­da­tion, ten were as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM, in­clud­ing the cur­rent Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Mar­tin Joseph. "How could she put that out of her mind when she is judg­ing the PNM's po­lit­i­cal en­e­my? Robert­son asked. "She had a du­ty to let the par­ties know she was the daugh­ter of a PNM hero and founder, that she was in­tro­duced by John Je­re­mie to be­come a trustee."