Saturday, August 4 2012

MINISTER of Justice Herbert Volney clarified yesterday that Cabinet, in 1990, approved an ex- gratia payment of $100,000 to him for his early termination of a contract he had as an Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), not a judge.

Volney resigned abruptly from the Bench in 2010 to contest the St Joseph seat, which he won in that year’s general election.

But he served as an Assistant DPP for nine years, resigned the job in 1989, and then worked in private practice for five more years, before becoming a judge.

“The payment was not when I left the Bench,” Volney said in the wake of a report which claimed he had been paid an ex-gratia payment by Cabinet in 2010. “It was when I resigned as Assistant DPP in 1989.

I was then a contract officer, and I resigned one year before the completion of my contract. The then Cabinet approved an ex-gratia payment in recognition of my service.” He added, “in those days $100,000 was a substantial sum.”