Category Archives: Law

Complaints, Law, Media, PNM, Politics

Case against PM thrown out

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October 15, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

PM Patrick ManningComplainant against PM in wrong courtroom

A PRIVATE criminal charge against Prime Minister Patrick Manning was thrown out by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls yesterday, because the woman who filed the charge was absent from the courtroom.

Manning, who appeared through his attorney Michael Quamina, later waved to reporters as his convoy stopped for a moment outside the St Vincent Street, Port of Spain courthouse, moments after the dismissal.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics

Dark Clouds From the Property Tax Overshadowing Divali

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By Stephen Kangal
October 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThe acquisition of profit-yielding immoveable property especially of land is alternatively referred to in divine terms as Dharti Mata. The accumulation of wealth (arth) that is regarded as a boon derived from and conferred by Lakshmi Mata consistent with the laws of good karma is pivotal to all the tenets underlying the practice of Hinduism. The home is a mandir to Hindus. Any attempt or perception of potential desecration or diminution of its sanctity of the shrine will be resisted by Bala (strength). There is a most powerful bonding and almost religious nexus existing between an owner-built home and its Hindu owner/occupants. That explains why land-based Indians generally are not on the move or highly migratory in habits.
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Complaints, Crime in T&T, Finance, Law, PNM, Politics, UDeCOTT

On today, Uff tomorrow

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By Raffique Shah
October 11, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Prof John UffSOMEONE determined many moons ago that there are three sides to every story-yours, mine, and the truth. Maybe that person lived in Norway, a country long seen as heaven-on-earth, which has consistently ranked at the top of the world in human development. He (or she) obviously knew nothing of faraway Trinidad where there are 100 sides to every rumour, and maybe more to every truth, if the latter at all exists in this country.
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Finance, General T&T, International, Law, PNM, Politics

Questions over Financial Intelligence Unit Bill

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Neswday Editorial
Thursday, October 8 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009WE congratulate the Independent and Opposition Senators for exposing the potential pitfalls of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009 debated in the Senate on Tuesday, but we wonder whether the Government made sufficient concessions to their concerns.

This stringent Bill sets up the FIU with sweeping powers to investigate any business activity deemed “suspicious,” with hefty fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to three years for someone refusing to disclose information.
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Law, Media, PNM, Politics, UDeCOTT

Derailing Uff

Newsday’s Editorial
Tuesday, October 6 2009

Calder HartLAST Friday’s freezing of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott until the High Court hears Udecott’s case for judicial review on February 8, 2010 may look like a bolt out of the blue, but to seasoned observers it should come as no surprise. While on the surface there is a lot of confusion as to how lawyers for the Commission could possibly have ended up agreeing to such a draconian consent-order with Udecott’s lawyers, we dryly note that it comes on the heels of a long list of past efforts to throw the spotlight of public accountability away from Udecott.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics

Ministers Doing a Demolition Job on Finance Minister Tesheira

By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Karen Nunez-TesheiraIt is palpably unsettling to witness the pathetic display of Ministers in the Ministry of Finance (not for the first time), Minister Imbert and including Local Government Minister Hazel Manning attacking with full force the credibility and integrity of Finance Minister Tesheira’s “done deal” property tax. This tax reinforced by Finance Ministry vaulting- ambitious aspirants may very well hasten her imminent political waterloo because she has now been relegated to cold storage. She does not speak on her draconian fiscal measure any more. She has been muzzled.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics, UNC

PM’s legal debts

Newsday Editorial
September 30 2009 – newsday.co.tt

PM Patrick ManningATTORNEY GENERAL (AG) John Jeremie did not exactly admit it on Monday in the Senate, but in our view he seemed to be trying to make a case for debt-forgiveness for the half-million dollars owed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning as unpaid legal costs to the State. Mr Jeremie said Mr Manning has so far paid $555,000 out of a $1.15 million debt incurred in 2002 when he lost his High Court bid to stop the defection of the then-Opposition MPs Dr Rupert Griffith and Dr Vincent Lasse to join the former UNC government.
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General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Religion, UNC

Discourse and diatribe

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By Raffique Shah
September 27, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Raffique ShahIt is depressing, to say the least, watching men and women who hold high offices, eschew discourse in favour of diatribe as they engage each other in matters of national interest. The latest salvo fired by Attorney General John Jeremie as he responded to statements by the Law Association, is a case in point. Clearly, the AG believes he and his colleagues in government are being targeted by political opponents, which is why he must descend into the gutter to snipe at the “enemy”.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, Politics, Tobago, UDeCOTT

No to Increase in Property Tax!

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By Sylvan N. Wilson
September 20, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThe Government and in particular the Minister of Finance have been attempting to justify their murderous property tax by arguing that the value of properties has changed since 1948. They have astutely deciphered that properties have increased in value over the last sixty-one years.
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General T&T, Law, Politics

Archie buck dem up

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By Raffique Shah
September 20, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Chief Justice Ivor ArchieAS I listened to Chief Justice Ivor Archie deliver his address at the opening of the new Law Term, I was transported back in time-42 years ago, to be precise. The CJ must have been a little past toddler stage then, and most of his fellow-judges not yet born or barely older. It was my first Carnival after two-years of military training in frigid England. As a “carnival peong” who had missed out on Sniper’s classic “Portrait of Trinidad” (1966), I jumped straight into however many fetes I could “play myself”. And the tune we partied most to? An infectious double-entendre titled “Archie Buck Dem Up” by a little known (for me, anyway) Bajan group called the Merrymen.
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