Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is chal­leng­ing UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to an­swer ques­tions about for­mer judge Her­bert Vol­ney, in­clud­ing whether he was ap­point­ed a judge in The Ba­hamas and the ap­point­ment was re­voked. Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's PNM ral­ly in Port-of-Spain, Man­ning said the UNC had un­der­mined the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry, with a judge and mag­is­trate re­sign­ing to be­come nom­i­nees. Man­ning said: "These gen­tle­men jumped from their po­si­tions as im­par­tial pro­tec­tors of the law and dis­pensers of jus­tice straight in­to the par­ti­san po­lit­i­cal fray...It is ab­solute­ly im­prop­er. "They are try­ing to de­ceive peo­ple by seek­ing to make a case that no po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sions or ne­go­ti­a­tions were tak­ing place while this gen­tle­man presided in the courts of the land.

"This is a most dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment, and points to re­al dan­ger ahead for T&T and our democ­ra­cy, if this elec­tion goes the wrong way. "What was the na­ture of the dis­cus­sions be­tween the UNC and these for­mer mem­bers of the Bench? "For how long were these dis­cus­sions tak­ing place? How did this re­la­tion­ship af­fect the de­ci­sions of this for­mer High Court judge. "Did his de­ci­sions un­fair­ly favour UNC sup­port­ers, friends and fi­nanciers? Was jus­tice served and dis­pensed by this gen­tle­man?" Seek­ing an­swers on the judge's in­tegri­ty, Man­ning added: "I call up­on the leader of that par­ty for an ex­pla­na­tion. She can't es­cape from this. She can't go on as though every­thing is honky-do­ry, speak­ing plat­i­tudi­nous non­sense, prais­ing the for­mer judge for his sac­ri­fice, as though he is some kind of hero to be em­u­lat­ed. "He is not a hero in any way."