By INDARJIT SEURAJ Friday, March 12 2010

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BACK IN COURT: Former Government Minister Brian Kuei Tung (right) and businessman Ameer Edoo leave the Port-of-Spain Magistrates' Court yesterday afte...

AFTER over a year without an Integrity Commission, President George Maxwell Richards will next Monday swear in a new commission.

Yesterday, Chief State Solicitor Rehanna Hosein wrote to Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh informing him that the President had “identified a full slate of appointees to the Integrity Commission and has scheduled a swearing in ceremony for Monday 15 March, 2010.”

Boodoosingh is expected to deliver a ruling in the San Fernando High Court on a constitutional motion, at the end of this month, filed by president of the Indo-Trinbago Council Devant Maharaj.

Maharaj filed the motion in October 2009, against the Attorney General, claiming his constitutional rights were being violated by the President’s continued failure and/or refusal to appoint a new Integrity Commission.

The country has been without a commission since February 3, 2009. Apart from Maharaj’s motion, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar pressed for a new commission on April 29, 2009, via a pre-action protocol letter to Richards requesting him to appoint a commission within 21 days or she would seek a court order to compel him to do so.

The commission is a constitutionally compulsory body mandated to investigate all complaints of breaches to the Integrity in Public Life Act by persons in public office.

On February 5, 2009, four members of the then board resigned after Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley won his judicial review case against the commission. Commission chairman John Martin, deputy chairman Justice Monica Barnes, Peter Clarke and Vindra Dean-Maharaj abruptly submitted their resignations to the President two days after Rowley’s overwhelming victory.

Richards appointed a new commission months later, but hours after that swearing in ceremony, the new slate began to disintegrate. On the day of the swearing in, on May 1, 2009 retired Justice Zainool Hosein resigned, claiming he was initially offered the post of deputy chairman, but was bypassed.

And amidst reports of plagiarism in the writing of his column in a daily newspaper, Fr Henry Charles resigned as chairman citing the Code of Canon Law prevented him from taking up the post. Jeffrey Mc Farlane also sent in his resignation days later. The other two members, Gladys Gafoor, retired Industrial Court member, and University Bursar Lylla Rose Bada, also tendered their resignations.