By ANDRE BAGOO Wednesday, September 16 2009

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CHAT: Prime Minister Patrick Manning, left, engages in a brief chat with Works Minister and the Leader of Government Business in the House, Colm Imber...

LEADER of Government Business in the Lower House, Colm Imbert, on Monday night told Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar to “go back to law school”, as he defended Attorney General John Jeremie’s decision on Monday in Parliament to criticise the ruling of High Court Judge Justice Rajendra Narine over a controversial affidavit.

The Budget debate in the Lower House took on the atmosphere of court proceedings as Imbert, a trained lawyer, told House Speaker Barry Sinanan that he wanted to “submit” a few arguments on the issue just before midnight.

“According to the Honourable member for Siparia (Bissessar) it is a contempt of court, blatant, absolute contempt to dare to criticise the ruling of a judge, and that a government must never do so. In fact (she) accused the Attorney General of using the Parliament to attack the Honourable Justice Narine,” Imbert said. “Any body inside or outside of Parliament can criticise judgments and a judge. I mean the only thing you have to be careful about is that you cannot villify or personally demonise a judge, but you can certainly criticise decisions and their judgments so that is just foolishness. ”

He continued, “all the Attorney General did today was to criticise the decision of Justice Narine. He did not make any personal attack on the judge, he did not villify the judge.”

Imbert cited the United Kingdom case of R v Metropolitan Police Commissioner ex parte Blackbird (No. 1). He quoted the remarks of Lord Denning as saying, “it is the right of every man to make fair comment, even outspoken comment, on matters of public interest. Those who comment can deal faithfully with all that is done in a court of justice. They can say we are mistaken, they can say our decisions are erroneous, all that we would ask is that from the nature of our office, we cannot reply to criticisms.”

Of this Imbert remarked, “you can make the strongest criticism on a judge and a judgment but what he went on to say was what the court will not tolerate was a personal attack on a judge.” On the prompting of Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira, also a trained lawyer, Imbert also cited the historic Privy Council case of Ambard in support of his case.

“So the member for Siparia needs some education in law. She needs to go back to law school. She needs to re-educate herself,” Imbert said. Persad-Bissessar was not in the chamber at the time.

The Minister of Works and Transport went on to offer his own thoughts on Narine’s ruling last Friday to refer an affidavit sworn by Jamaat leader Abu Bakr to the police.

“The other thing I want to submit to the Parliament (is this). What has happened in this particular case is that the judge has directed the police to investigate the matter, not to enforce a breach of the law, and I am not sure a judge can do that. I am sure that this matter will be fully ventilated and tested in another place,” Imbert said. “I am not sure that a judge has that kind of discretion that he can order the police to investigate an unproven allegation.”

In his judgment last Friday, Narine ordered the Registrar of the Supreme Court “to forward a copy of the affidavit...to the Acting Commissioner of Police and the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions for their consideration.” This decision came after a Privy Council ruling which had struck the affidavit out from the proceedings. In a statement made hours before Imbert spoke, Jeremie criticised the judge’s ruling for this reason and revealed that he had penned a letter for Chief Justice Ivor Archie on the issue.

Jeremie’s statements in Parliament were not the first time a member of the Government benches has criticised the ruling of a sitting Supreme Court Judge. In 1983 then Prime Minister George Chambers was criticised when, after acting on the advice of then Attorney General, Russell Martineau, he attacked a ruling of Justice Lennox Deyalsingh. That incident resulted in a motion of no-confidence against Martineau being passed by the Law Association as well as Martineau’s tendering of his resignation, which was refused by Chambers.