Tuesday, September 22 2009

OPPOSITION LEADER Basdeo Panday and Congress of the People (COP) Political Leader Winston Dookeran have condemned the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) for describing the Law Association as “a bunch of political opportunists and political masqueraders.”

The PNM’s statement came in the wake of one made by Attorney General John Jeremie in the House of Representatives last Monday. Jeremie said he had written a letter to Chief Justice Ivor Archie expressing the Government’s concerns that Justice Rajendra Narine referred to an affidavit in which Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr claimed to have made “an oral agreement” with Prime Minister Patrick Manning to give political support to the PNM in the 2002 General Elections in exchange for the State forgiving a $32 million debt owed by the Jamaat for the destruction of public property during the July 27, 1990, attempted coup.

Jeremie said Narine should not have referred to this affidavit because it had been ruled “scandalous and irrelevant” by the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council and ordered to be removed from the record. In its statement, the Law Association said Jeremie was wrong to say that Narine defied the order of these superior courts. The PNM countered with a statement which claimed that the current leadership of the Law Association “continues to parrot positions indistinguishable from that of the Opposition parties.”

Panday described the statement as another attempt by the PNM to bring the Judiciary under its control. He wondered how the PNM could define the statement by the Law Association as political. Dookeran said the PNM’s statement was “highly irresponsible in a free democracy.”

Further describing the statement as “unforgivable,” Dookeran said all the Law Association was doing was expressing its professional opinion. He expressed concern that whenever any person or group questions Government’s policies, they could be branded as unpatriotic or having a political agenda against the Government.