Kamla: DPP acted against public interest

FORMER Attorney General Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday charged that Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson acted contrary to the public interest and the law of Trinidad and Tobago by advising Police Commissioner Trevor Paul not to lay charges against Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley in connection with the September 15 Parliament tearoom incident between Rowley and Fyzabad MP Chandresh Sharma. According to Persad-Bissessar, Henderson’s decision “amounts to an abdication on the part of the DPP who not only misdirected himself in law, but also took into account irrelevant considerations. In such a clear case, where the DPP in his own words admits that the evidential test has been met, the public interest would be best served not by truncating the process of justice as he has done but, by having this matter fully ventilated in a public forum and adjudicated by an impartial body. The law of TT provides no better public forum and impartial adjudicator than the courts,” she declared.

Persad-Bissessar said the DPP’s argument that the Privileges Committee of Parliament was “an alternative to prosecution” and parliamentary procedure had already been engaged was “without merit.” She explained that the committee’s hearings were not public hearings as was the case of criminal court proceedings, and could not be seen as best serving the public interest. She further indicated that the committee is not impartial since the majority of its members are Government MPs. Persad-Bissessar added that no one is above the law of TT and “a high government official should be treated in the same way as other citizens are treated.” Referring to Sharma’s complaints against Rowley, she said, there was no case which the DPP could rely upon “where the evidential test was satisfied and the investigating police officer recommended that the perpetrator of the alleged assault be charged, but the police and/or the DPP has not prosecuted the alleged offender.” Persad-Bissessar said the DPP misdirected himself by relying upon Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, cases cited therein and a case in Zimbabwe’s parliament.

She said unlike the UK, Parliament “has expressly provided in a statute (House of Representatives Act Chap 2:02) for the prosecution of, inter alia, assault of a member of Parliament within the precincts of Parliament. TT would only be bound by such practices and procedures where there is an absence of explicit statutory provisions here. This is not the situation here in TT.” Persad-Bissessar added that Henderson has placed his offence in “a legal quagmire” and opened his office to allegations of bias and political interference. She reiterated that justice and the public interest would have been better served “not by a truncation of the judicial process by the DPP but by a public hearing in the courts of TT.” Former House Speaker Hector McClean said the DPP had the power to make certain decisions and he did so in this case. McClean said an incident of this nature never happened during his tenure as speaker and Parliament “is not altogether outside of the scope of the AG and the DPP.”