By Andre Bagoo
Thursday, June 5 2008
ATTORNEY GENERAL Brigid Annisette-George was yesterday accused of taking the country one step closer to a secret government as lawyers, constitutional and public service experts criticised her for, on Tuesday, blocking parliamentary questions on the legal fees paid to private attorneys for State briefs.
“It strikes me that this is yet another step in the Government’s march towards secrecy; to keep the citizenry in the dark while using the citizens’ funds,” said Reginald Dumas, retired head of the public service in a telephone interview yesterday.
“That is unacceptable in a society that has a proper respect for democracy and for its principles.”
Lawyers and constitutional experts alike, including president of the Law Association Martin Daly SC, yesterday criticised the Attorney General for failing to reveal the amount of money paid to Douglas Mendes SC when asked by Opposition Senator Wade Mark in the Senate on Tuesday. The Government has been criticised repeatedly by the Opposition for failing to answer questions in Parliament.
Mark, the shadow attorney general in the Senate, had filed a six-part question asking for an extensive list of all of the cases in which Mendes has represented the State as well as a “detailed breakdown” of the fees paid to the well-known senior counsel.
The question had been deferred for answer by the Government in the Senate since being first asked on February 19 by Mark. On that date, the Attorney General had said, “Mr President, regrettably I am unable to answer the question this afternoon. In respect of this question, I also seek a two-week deferment for this answer.”
Fourteen weeks later, in refusing to give the breakdown of Mendes’ fees on Tuesday, the Attorney General said Section 4c of the Constitution, which protects an individual’s right to the respect of his private and family life, was in direct conflict with the constitutional duty of government ministers to account to Parliament.
“The right of the individuals to respect of private life would include the protection from disclosure to the public of their remuneration without consent. In fact, in the enactment of specific statutes our Parliament has exhibited its recognition of that right,” she said on Tuesday.
Annisette-George further claimed it would divert too much of the resources in her office to answer such questions and cited the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act as supporting her position.
But Daly yesterday strongly countered that the Constitution was not a bar to the disclosure in Parliament of monies paid to lawyers who take on State briefs.
“The Constitution is no such bar,” he said in a telephone interview. “I really don’t see how the Constitution could be a bar to that.”
“What other information is the Government going to withhold by self-adjudicating that the Constitution is a bar? This is really self-adjudicating,” Daly lamented.
Dumas argued that the issue was really the expenditure of public money and not one of an individual’s right to privacy.
“How high do you place this bar of alleged privacy?” he asked, pointing out that the salaries and other perquisites of public servants and government officials are published.
“Here you have a situation in which a lawyer is hired by the State, he’s not in public office but he is receiving public money for carrying out work on behalf of the public because he is carrying out work on behalf of the Government.”
“If a lawyer does work for a client in private practice that is private. But here, public monies are involved. It’s the same thing like Udecott (Udecott is to be the subject of a commission of inquiry). You are dealing with public funds; public money and the taxpayer has a right to know how taxpayers’ money is being spent.”
“How can you say that it is a matter of privacy for the lawyer? What about the client? We are the client!”
Kenneth Lalla SC, a constitutional lawyer and former head of the Public Service Commission, agreed.
“What is involved here is public expenditure for services rendered to the State. Clearly the disbursement of funds is a matter of public interest… The government is certainly required to account for the way in which it spends the taxpayer’s money. I therefore find it difficult to see a… breach of privacy in this particular scenario.”
He described the AG’s complaint over the resources that would be taken up in researching the answers for the questions as “totally irrelevant”.
Section 30 of the 1999 Freedom of Information Act outlines an exemption for documents requested under the Act if they “would involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information of any individual, including a deceased individual.” But lawyers yesterday pointed out that this hinges on the interpretation of “unreasonable” and is a statute not applicable to the Parliament.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,80181.html
I am very embarrassed by the Manning Administration and I have lost respect for our government.They are not even pretending to be democratic anymore. Anyone who wants a piece of the public purse cannot decide that the state must protect their privacy and not divulge their payment.This is tax-payers money and we must know how every cent is allocated.Trinidad and Tobago is beginning to look like Russia.
Govt must reveal fees
Editorial
Saturday 7th May, 2008
guardian.co.tt
On the face of it, information on the fees earned by lawyer Douglas Mendes from briefs given by the State is not a large issue in itself. Unless, of course, there is something that is being hidden from public view.
However, it is a dangerous road for the Government to be allowed to saunter down if it seeks to deny the public the right to know how its monies are being spent, and moreover adopts the position that it can invoke vague constitutional provisions to do as it likes and not account to the population.
And this is clearly a case of a collective decision taken with the requirement for the Attorney General to then go out, lawyer-like, to manipulate a legal principle towards the end of concealment.
The matter of the refusal by the Attorney General to answer the question posed by UNC Senator Wade Mark on the earnings of Mr Mendes gets, like Alice wondered, “curiouser and curiouser.”
This is so as the precedent was set in the Parliament on a number of previous occasions of fees earned by different kinds of professionals and companies being revealed without too much disturbance.
Like poor Alice wondered at the reasons when she experienced normalcy disappearing as her body began transforming out of all proportions: “Why?” she cried. Why not in the instance?
As pointed out by a number of learned counsel and retired public administrators, the focus of the Attorney General on not wanting to reveal information on the private business of the lawyer in question is not the issue. What is, is the right of the public to know and the responsibility of the Government to account to the national population for its spending and decisions taken.
On this latter matter, Prime Minister Manning and his Government seem to have a particular difficulty. Consistently, on a number of contentious issues—including on the calls by many in this country for a commission of enquiry into Udecott—the Prime Minister and his ministers have adopted the position that their word must be taken by the national community as the last statement.
“The Prime Minister has spoken” was the response of Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, who as we are aware is the wife of the Prime Minister. She seemed to convey a definitive personal position on the leader of the Government.
The par excellence social observer and commentator that he was then, the Mighty Sparrow used his calypsonic licence to interpret a similar attitude of then Prime Minister Eric Williams on the Solomon affair:
“…When I pass an order, Mr Speaker, this matter must go no further. This land is mine, I am the boss, what I say goes, who vex loss.”
The Government must be aware that the times have changed and the population, the media and social commentators are not going to allow a government to do as it chooses.
The administration of the day must not see this new attitude of the public and of commentators, including this editorial, as one of political partisanship, being against a particular government and for some other political party, but rather as a new awakening to fulfil the responsibility of being watchdogs over government and indeed all the institutions in the society.
History has demonstrated that only constant vigilance ensures that a government will remain in line.
The Government must therefore come forward with the information required; it must account to the Parliament and to the population for its actions and be judged on those actions.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2008-06-07/editorial.html
Something to hide
Editorial
Saturday, June 7 2008
newsday.co.tt
A recent statement by Attorney-General Bridgid Annisette-George confirms the Government’s desire to conceal information from the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.
In the Senate last Tuesday, Ms Annisette-George refused to answer a question relating to monies paid by Government to Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes for legal work. The question had been filed by Opposition Senator Wade Mark on February 19. At that time, Ms Annisette- George had requested a two-week deferment. But, finally returning to the issue four months later, the AG’s argument was that giving such information would conflict with Section 4(c) of the Constitution, which protects “the right of the individual to respect for his private and family life”. She also claimed that answering such questions would divert too many resources from the AG’s office.
The sheer absurdity of this response strongly implies that the real motive is not Constitutional concern, nor even the apparent inability of the Attorney General’s accounts department to make up a financial statement. Instead, the real issue appears to be the Government’s wish to create a regime which is not accountable to the people. Former head of the Public Service, Reginald Dumas, pointed out that the salaries of public servants and other Government officials are published, and that in the case of the Mendes question it was public monies being spent. Attorney Kenneth Lalla, himself a former head of the Public Services Commission, agreed, saying, “What is involved here is public expenditure for services rendered to the State.” And SC Martin Daly asked, pointedly, “What other information is the Government going to withhold by self-adjudicating that the Constitution is a bar?”
Indeed, by Ms Annisette-George’s logic, the government should either conceal all information relating to public servants, including the Prime Minister and President, or officially classify such persons as belonging to some category of citizens other than “private”. This would make it difficult, however, to advertise for jobs in the Public Service or any other government department, since salary ranges would become public knowledge and, according to Ms Annisette-George, this violates the Constitution.
It must also be noted that, by taking this tack, the Government has put Mr Mendes himself in an uncomfortable position. Ms Annisette-George made sure to frame her response in the context that the information about Mr Mendes’s fees could not be released “without consent”. So there is the implication that Mr Mendes himself doesn’t want the people of TT to know how their money is being spent. Such a manoeuvre on the part of the Government hardly reflects respect for an individual’s private life. In any case, no one is asking Mr Mendes to reveal his bank account – Senator Mark’s question asks only how much money he has received from the Government.
We would further note that Ms Annisette-George’s refusal to divulge this information is part of a pattern, where the Manning administration has narrowed the Freedom of Information Act, continually tried to spin statistical information on matters from crime to education, avoided answering questions to Ministers in Parliament, considered revamping the Judicial Review Act which allows public interest litigation against the Government, and continues to try to prevent Udecott from being subject to public scrutiny – the latest such attempt being the Government’s absurd request to Udecott to check up on a company which its own chairman might have a conflict of interest with.
As long as the Government continues with this approach, they will only reinforce public perception that they have something to hide, and that they are using every means to do so.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/editorial/0,80316.html
Kamla: Possible legal action against Govt for ‘privacy clause’
The Opposition United National Congress Alliance is considering taking legal action against the Government with respect to the use of the Constitution’s right to privacy clause to withhold information from the public, says Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
It is very seldom that I agree with some of the utterances of the UNC, this however, is not one of those seldom occassion. In fact, not only do I agree with the statement that the right to privacy has absolutely no bearing or effect in this matter, but will further suggest, that if there is any inkling that there is a clause or article in the Constitution which may be interpreted to offer privacy protection in matters similar to this, then the UNC and indeed the people of Trinidad and Tobago must pursue an effective ammendment to reflect otherwise. There cannot and must not be privacy in payment matters, when the hard working and sometimes repressed working taxpayers are footing the bill..
ATTORNEY GENERAL Brigid Annisette-George and many others in the Manning cabinet were not elected by the people. Mariano Browne behaved in the same way regarding Manning’s jet purchase and he was selected, not elected.
Is it possible that selection rather than election removes accountability to the taxpayers?
Hoisted on his own pétard?
By Selwyn Ryan
Sunday, June 8th 2008
trinidadexpress.com
Prime Minister Manning was quoted recently as saying that while he listens to the opinions of all and sundry, if he took all the advice he got, “we will reach nowhere. You [thus] have to stand by the courage of your conviction”. Mr Manning however denied that he is mulishly stubborn and “arrogant,”or that “stick break in his ears”. Defending himself against the accusation that he does not listen to the voices of the people or even to persons in his own Cabinet who do not meekly accept or defer to his view, Manning complained that “we live in a society where the naysayers and those who try to discourage you far exceed those who try to encourage you and help you to improve They are quick to say it is the wrong thing to do They don’t know what is the right thing, but they know it is wrong.” He further complained that “everybody is an expert except those who have the authority to do something.” Mr Manning, however, conceded that “public criticism keeps governments on their toes”.
Part of the problem has to do with the fact that Trinidadians and Tobagonians are not a docile or deferential people, but a land of a “million mutinies”. There is, however, another dimension to the problem. While he might not intend or be aware of it, Mr Manning’s political persona or aura does exude arrogance, smugness, and self-righteousness. When he speaks, he lets it be known, both with words and body language that, as his wife put it infelicitously, “he has spoken”. Critics are deemed emotional or not sufficiently aware as to where their true interests lay. One therefore leaves them alone, assuming that they will eventually come home, sheepishly bringing their tails behind them. The fact that for many, the Opposition is inelectable, serves to reinforce this tendency towards political stonewalling.
Continue to ‘Hoisted on his own pétard?’