KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of seek­ing to get rid of dozens of lawyers with­in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AGLA) as it moves to make changes with­in AGLA’s civ­il de­part­ment.

How­ev­er, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, said the re­struc­tur­ing of the civ­il law de­part­ment arose out of the now in­fa­mous court case where a miss­ing file pre­vent­ed the State from putting in a de­fence in the ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case aris­ing out of the Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man mur­der tri­al.

The nine men ac­cused of the busi­ness­woman’s kid­nap­ping and mur­der filed a case of ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion in 2020 af­ter they were found not guilty. When the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al failed to re­spond, they were award­ed a $20 mil­lion judg­ment which has since been stayed by the court.

De­fend­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s plans, Ar­mour said the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Act), 2024, seeks to es­tab­lish clear guide­lines as to the role and func­tion of each de­part­ment to­wards con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment.

Thus, the JLSC Act seeks to fuse the de­part­ments of chief state so­lic­i­tor and so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al in­to one civ­il law de­part­ment with pro­vi­sions for chil­dren’s at­tor­neys and for ef­fec­tive cham­bers’ man­age­ment. It al­so in­tends to cre­ate a reg­is­trar gen­er­al de­part­ment as a sep­a­rate de­part­ment in the min­istry, with the reg­is­trar gen­er­al as the chief le­gal of­fi­cer.

It al­so aims to make pro­vi­sions for peo­ple at the in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty of­fice to be en­gaged on con­tract to per­form their spe­cialised func­tions. Be­fore the amend­ment, the act stat­ed that the civ­il law de­part­ment should be split in­to de­part­ments for civ­il law, crim­i­nal law, leg­isla­tive draft­ing, and ac­count­ing, re­spec­tive­ly.

They were head­ed by the so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­cil, and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary. It al­so in­clud­ed a Chief State So­lic­i­tor and a Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al. But the Op­po­si­tion does not be­lieve it is as sim­ple as a name change. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ref­er­enced a let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 1 ad­dressed to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Ac­cord­ing to her, the let­ter was signed by 31 lawyers from the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al De­part­ment who had se­ri­ous con­cerns about the amend­ments to the bill.

At the top of their list was the fear of los­ing their jobs. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “You can­not take away peo­ple’s jobs in this man­ner. These peo­ple have fam­i­lies. They have chil­dren to feed. They have bills to pay. When this goes in­to ef­fect, what hap­pens to these per­sons? You have abol­ished their jobs. You have fired them, and you can­not do it by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty piece of law. And if you bring it by a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, we will not give you that sup­port.

“We have to take care of our work­ers in this coun­try. They have bills. You are abol­ish­ing the jobs of these peo­ple ... You didn’t even con­sult with them. You didn’t even have the cour­tesy to meet them to talk with them about what con­cerns they have. Look at what is hap­pen­ing now. You rush it through here, think­ing that you can pass it with your sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.”

But the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said he re­spond­ed to the let­ter and asked Mas­ter Christie-Anne Mor­ris-Al­leyne to meet with the lawyers on his be­half be­cause he was un­able to do so as he stayed in Par­lia­ment un­til mid­night. Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young sought to as­sure the lawyers that there was noth­ing to be wor­ried about.