Richard Lord

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ramesh De­osaran is ad­vis­ing the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) against tak­ing any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine over his de­ci­sion to or­der the po­lice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to in­ves­ti­gate an al­leged deal be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. De­osaran made the call dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's 2010 bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate. Jus­tice Nar­ine made his rul­ing ear­li­er this month, an­ger­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie who told Par­lia­ment sub­se­quent­ly that Jus­tice Nar­ine's or­der was made af­ter both the Court of Ap­peal and the Privy Coun­cil had ruled that the al­le­ga­tion as con­tained in an af­fi­davit by Abu Bakr be struck off the record.

De­osaran said, how­ev­er, that Je­re­mie was right to com­ment on Jus­tice Nar­ine's rul­ing. De­osaran holds that law re­form and oth­er ad­just­ments to the ju­di­cial sys­tem can hap­pen on­ly af­ter mat­ters were con­sid­ered and de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment. He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the ques­tion aris­es whether the judge should have passed the af­fi­davit for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice and the DPP, es­pe­cial­ly since, it was ar­gued, it was struck out by the Ap­peal Court and the Privy Coun­cil.

He added fur­ther that it did not mean that the doc­u­ment was out of ex­is­tence as there was a world out­side the courts. De­osaran stressed: "The rep­u­ta­tion of the PM, in terms of this ac­cu­sa­tion by Abu Bakr in the af­fi­davit, is now be­fore the pub­lic do­main and I would wish that the mat­ter be cleared up. I do not think that af­fi­davit should be com­plete­ly out of ex­is­tence." He then de­clared: "I say leave Jus­tice Nar­ine alone. Do not touch Jus­tice Nar­ine. I want the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion to stay away from do­ing any­thing un­favourable to Jus­tice Nar­ine."