In­dar­jit Seu­raj

In­dar­jit Seu­raj

Is­rael Khan, SC, yes­ter­day de­mand­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar have Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney is­sue a pub­lic apol­o­gy for state­ments he made dur­ing last Thurs­day's bud­get de­bate.

Khan said the move by Per­sad-Bisses­sar to dis­tance her­self from Vol­ney's com­ments was an in­ad­e­quate re­sponse.

In­stead, he called on the Per­sad-Bisses­sar to "di­rect" Vol­ney to apol­o­gise for his state­ments.

"She (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) must di­rect him to apol­o­gise at the next sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Chief Jus­tice and the ju­di­cia­ry," Khan said.

Khan said fur­ther dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion should be tak­en if Vol­ney re­fused to apol­o­gise.

"If the ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Jus­tice re­fus­es to apol­o­gise then he should be re­moved im­me­di­ate­ly from the Min­istry of Jus­tice and placed else­where," he added.

Last Thurs­day, at the bud­get de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Vol­ney launched an at­tack on Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, al­leg­ing a "sweet­heart deal" be­tween Archie and for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

Archie re­spond­ed to the com­ments over the week­end, say­ing Vol­ney's com­ments were not on­ly an at­tack on the Chief Jus­tice but al­so on the ju­di­cia­ry.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Vol­ney had a tenure in the ju­di­cia­ry as a crim­i­nal judge, be­fore he re­signed and en­tered in­to pol­i­tics for the May 24, 2010 elec­tion.

In a re­lease is­sued from his Justi­tia Om­nibus Law Cham­bers, Port-of-Spain, Khan al­so called on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, who is head of the Bar, to ex­press his "dis­plea­sure" at Vol­ney's com­ments.

"The ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is the tit­u­lar head of the Bar and I ex­pect him to show his dis­plea­sure at the next sit­ting of the Sen­ate of the scan­dalous and slan­der­ous at­tack made up­on the Chief Jus­tice by the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice," Khan said.

He al­so ral­lied se­nior at­tor­neys wear­ing "silk"–who are "man­dat­ed by the lawyers' code of ethics to de­fend judges and mag­is­trates from un­just crit­i­cism"–to de­fend the ju­di­cia­ry.

"I call up­on the Law As­so­ci­a­tion,whose du­ty is to pro­mote the rule of law and re­spect for the ju­di­cia­ry, to con­demn in very strong lan­guage this at­tack."

Khan added: "And where are the voic­es of the lead­ers of the Bar–men and women who adorned silk robes? Is the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion dead with the pass­ing of Desmond Al­lum, SC? Do we still have a south­ern as­sem­bly of lawyers? Where are the To­ba­go lawyers?"