ASHA JAVEED

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has fired back at Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine ac­cus­ing him of wit­ness tam­per­ing and at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice “in full pub­lic view”.

He said that Au­gus­tine used the ex­tra­or­di­nary sit­ting of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) on Wednes­day as a medi­um to re­lease in­for­ma­tion on a mat­ter in which he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and sought to ex­on­er­ate him­self.

In do­ing so, Dr Row­ley said, Au­gus­tine im­pli­cat­ed the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice as well as a Se­nior Coun­sel and sub­ject­ed them all to defama­tion.

In pre­sent­ing his case against Au­gus­tine on Thurs­day at a press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Dr Row­ley was care­ful not to iden­ti­fy peo­ple or re­peat state­ments by the Chief Sec­re­tary.

To this end, Dr Row­ley said he was seek­ing le­gal ad­vice on mat­ters raised at the sit­ting and is await­ing le­gal ad­vice from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour.

In his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty, Dr Row­ley said, he will leave no stone un­turned to clear his name.

At Wednes­day’s sit­ting of the THA, Au­gus­tine im­pli­cat­ed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of­fi­cials of pay­ing a ‘whistle­blow­er’, Ak­il Ab­dul­lah to de­stroy him and oth­er THA of­fi­cials.

Among the in­di­vid­u­als Au­gus­tine iden­ti­fied in the plot were Dr Row­ley, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher. Dr Row­ley, Pe­ter­son, and Hare­wood-Christo­pher de­nied all al­le­ga­tions im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the THA sit­ting on Wednes­day.

On Thurs­day, Dr Row­ley ex­plained that what Au­gus­tine did in record­ing some­one with­out his per­mis­sion and then play­ing the record­ing in the THA, with­out ob­jec­tion from the chief pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer was akin to wit­ness tam­per­ing.

He said, to his knowl­edge, it was the first time that was done in a par­lia­men­tary sit­ting in the Com­mon­wealth.

“The Chief Sec­re­tary then pro­ceed­ed by spe­cial arrange­ment to get in­to the As­sem­bly, to use the cov­er of the as­sem­bly to en­gage in wit­ness tam­per­ing. Be­cause, in­ter­est­ing­ly enough, every­thing that he pro­duced there in the As­sem­bly, when a pro­duc­tion in­volv­ing a wit­ness who is in ac­tive co­op­er­a­tion with the po­lice, he is a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of any change of the sit­u­a­tion.

“And, of course, it is for the law to de­ter­mine now, which grade of per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice has tak­en place in full pub­lic view.

“This does not erase the so-called tes­ti­mo­ny of this per­son who had the As­sem­bly floor to voice defama­tion un­chal­lenged against the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T, against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, against a mag­is­trate who is de­scribed as id­i­ot­ic and, of course, it vi­o­lat­ed every tenet of the ex­is­tence of priv­i­lege and the use of priv­i­lege in our house of Par­lia­ment or de­bate in any Com­mon­wealth coun­try,” he said.

Dr Row­ley said the mat­ter was mys­te­ri­ous and pro­ceed­ed to ex­plain ex­act­ly why. He said that the per­son who was sub­orned for the tes­ti­mo­ny is a po­lice wit­ness.

“The Chief Sec­re­tary has said as a re­sult of what he has pro­duced in the As­sem­bly, he has ex­on­er­at­ed him­self and has voiced that he sees no need for him­self be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. So as far as he’s con­cerned, he has done enough to put an end to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that was ac­tive­ly un­der way. That takes us in­to the ter­ri­to­ry of at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice,” he said.

“If he has suc­ceed­ed in do­ing that, what he would have done, and he’s not be­ing ac­cused of, is tak­ing per­son­al steps by his pro­duc­tion at that sit­u­a­tion, to sub­orn tes­ti­mo­ny to un­der­mine an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion where he is a per­son un­der the in­ves­ti­ga­tion with the se­ri­ous charges, like­ly or pos­si­bly to come his way.

“The Chief Sec­re­tary in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has put him­self above the law and has tak­en steps to en­sure that he doesn’t on­ly think that he’s above the law, but he acts to put him­self above the law,” he said.

Row­ley said that Au­gus­tine does not have the right “un­der law or pro­vi­sions of the As­sem­bly to do what he has done”.

He not­ed that as the longest-serv­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­an that the priv­i­leges and im­mu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed to MPs are root­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion which of­fers very deep roots and pro­tec­tions.

“Priv­i­lege is ac­cord­ed to mem­bers of the house for all the good rea­sons,” he said.

Dr Row­ley said his caveat was that he is not a lawyer but seek­ing le­gal ad­vice.

“The ques­tion that has to arise now based on what has hap­pened in To­ba­go is whether the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act, where pro­vi­sion for im­mu­ni­ties and priv­i­leges are need­ed, whether, in law, those priv­i­leges are su­pe­ri­or to the priv­i­leges that are pro­vid­ed to the Par­lia­ment un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. I can tell you as a non-lawyer, it just can­not be,” he said.

Row­ley said that it will be up to the courts to de­ter­mine whether the priv­i­leges af­ford­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly are su­pe­ri­or to the Par­lia­ment.

Dr Row­ley al­so took is­sue with the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer of the THA.

While he did not call names, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is Ab­by Tay­lor.

“I know of no pro­vi­sion in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act to al­low the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to ap­prove, even at her own dis­cre­tion, that the Chief Sec­re­tary could go and sub­orn tes­ti­mo­ny from a per­son or per­sons un­known. In par­lia­men­tary lan­guage that is called a stranger,” he said.

“To give voice to a stranger and then come in the house and give time and ex­po­sure to a stranger to make un­con­test­ed al­le­ga­tions against the coun­try’s lead­er­ship–po­lice, Prime Min­is­ter, Se­nior Coun­sel—This is ab­solute­ly reck­less, hor­ren­dous abuse of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and what­ev­er mod­icum of priv­i­lege it may have.

“And I do not in­tend to leave it there.

He not­ed that giv­en “the reach­ing con­se­quences of his mis­con­duct”, “this will now have to fall to the courts of Trinidad and To­ba­go to de­ter­mine what is right, what is wrong, what is al­low­able, and what is not in the coun­try of T&T.”

He said this was not a mat­ter of Au­gus­tine or the Prime Min­is­ter any­more but about the pil­lars of gov­er­nance in the in­de­pen­dent na­tion in the Re­pub­lic of T&T.

“I have in­struct­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to ob­tain se­ri­ous le­gal ad­vice on the way for­ward on this mat­ter. I will tell you as far as I’m con­cerned, my eyes are not ly­ing to me. I know I know what I’ve seen. I have seen wit­ness tam­per­ing,” he said.

When asked whether the Gov­ern­ment of T&T would in­ter­vene in the af­fairs of To­ba­go, Dr Row­ley said while those things have hap­pened in oth­er parts of the world, it will not hap­pen un­der his watch.

“I will en­cour­age no such ac­tion. I will re­quire the courts to de­ter­mine what is right and what is wrong. I am not go­ing to ad­vo­cate any high-hand­ed ac­tion like that.

“John Pub­lic in To­ba­go is not a part of this. They are vic­tims of this and, there­fore, I will not sub­ject them to any trau­ma of that na­ture. I will await the le­gal ad­vice that will come through civ­il chan­nels and any ac­tion that is avail­able,” he said.

Dr Row­ley called on the TTPS to pro­ceed and “in­ves­ti­gate any and all per­sons who took part in this sub­orn­ing of tes­ti­mo­ny”, who seek to un­der­mine an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.