In a tele­vised ad­dress to the na­tion on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2015, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "When this gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice, I pledged that there would be no com­pro­mise on in­tegri­ty in pub­lic of­fice or per­for­mance."

She ac­knowl­edged re­ceiv­ing crit­i­cism for re­mov­ing too many of­fice hold­ers dur­ing her first term but stressed that she was seek­ing to en­sure the pub­lic in­ter­est was se­cured.

"While it may have not served nar­row po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests, I took the de­ci­sions nec­es­sary to serve the broad­er na­tion­al in­ter­est, above and be­yond every­thing else."

It is ex­treme­ly note­wor­thy in the cur­rent con­text that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered those com­ments while an­nounc­ing that she had asked for, and re­ceived, the res­ig­na­tions of then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and then min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith.

Those two key min­is­ters were forced out of Cab­i­net due to al­le­ga­tions made by Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor David West, that Ram­lo­gan had asked him to with­draw a wit­ness state­ment he made in a defama­tion law­suit be­tween Ram­lo­gan and then op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In her first term, the Prime Min­is­ter demon­strat­ed a steely de­ter­mi­na­tion to live up to the oath she took in 2010 to "up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law" and "do right to all man­ner of peo­ple with­out fear or favour, af­fec­tion or ill-will."

As a re­sult, in April 2013, the Prime Min­is­ter asked for, and re­ceived, the res­ig­na­tion of Jack Warn­er, one of her key min­is­ters, three days af­ter damn­ing rev­e­la­tions of his con­duct as Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent in a re­port by for­mer Bar­ba­dos chief jus­tice Sir David Sim­mons.

She fired MP Collin Par­tap as min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Au­gust 2012, a few hours af­ter he was de­tained by po­lice for fail­ing to take a breathal­yser test. Sen­a­tor Mary King was al­so fired as Plan­ning min­is­ter in May 2011, fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of a con­flict of in­ter­est re­lat­ed to a con­tract award.

In all the in­stances of min­is­ters fired dur­ing the 2010 to 2015 ad­min­is­tra­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar kept her pledge that there would be no com­pro­mise on in­tegri­ty in pub­lic of­fice.

That ap­proach was in keep­ing with the ac­tions of for­mer prime min­is­ter Row­ley, who fired MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald twice, once for ac­com­pa­ny­ing a "com­mu­ni­ty leader" in­to Pres­i­dent's House and ear­li­er over al­le­ga­tions of re­lat­ed-par­ty deal­ings.

It is clear from the ex­am­ples set out above that prime min­is­ters have ei­ther fired or ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tions of min­is­ters whose con­duct could bring the gov­ern­ment's man­age­ment of the coun­try in­to dis­re­pute.

If in her first term, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was so ruth­less in dis­miss­ing min­is­ters who did not live up to the es­tab­lished stan­dards of in­tegri­ty, why has she re­siled from this pos­ture in her sec­ond term?

De­spite her threat to "buss the heads" of min­is­ters who fall short, she has failed to re­lieve Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee of his port­fo­lio, al­though he was ar­rest­ed and charged on Tues­day on con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

By the stan­dards of her first term, Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ex­pla­na­tion that Mr Lee was pre­vi­ous­ly ac­quit­ted of these charges and "now that the charges have been re-laid, we have con­fi­dence in the courts to de­liv­er a just re­sult," seems quite in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

It is ax­iomat­ic that a min­is­ter in the West­min­ster tra­di­tion can­not re­main in of­fice while hav­ing to de­fend them­selves in court.

To main­tain the in­tegri­ty of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mr Lee sim­ply must step aside while his mat­ter is in court.