Cabinet shocked at telephone calls

The Cabinet’s directive follows an exclusive publication by Newsday last Friday of telephone records showing calls between the residence of Chief Justice Sat Sharma and the cell-phone and office of Judge Judith Jones. Questions were being asked about the access of the ordinary man in the street to a judge in circumstances where a police charge is likely to be laid.

Jones is presiding over a number of matters involving the CJ for whom a warrant has been issued in relation to a charge for attempting to pervert the course of justice in connection with the Basdeo Panday trial.

In a four paragraph release issued yesterday, Jeremie also called on the Law Association to discuss the issue of unequal access following the revelations of the telephone exchanges. “In the light of the on-going national unease over the administration of justice, the Attorney General trusts that the Law Association will, with its usual efficiency, convene to discuss this issue as a matter of urgent national attention,” Jeremie stated.

Jeremie suggested that the access which might be implied in the absence of some other explanation — validated the concerns he raised in his address to the nation. “These matters strike at the heart of the perceptions of the very integrity of the administration of justice and equality before the law, and in the opinion of the Attorney General validate the concerns raised in his address to the nation on Monday July 17, 2006,” the release stated.

In his statement to the nation on Monday, which has been criticised by the Law Association, the AG had stressed that “none was above the law. “There can be no exceptions. There must be one law for rich and poor, big and small,” he said.

The AG also observed in this same address that the Chief Justice was head of the Judiciary and by virtue of that fact, was Chairman of the Judical and Legal Service Commission and that every single judicial officer was “amenable” to discipline by this Commission.

Newsday exclusively published on Friday the telephone records indicating seven telephone calls between the CJ’s residence and Judge Jones’ office and cellphone on the night that an ex parte injunction was granted by Jones preventing all 7,000 members of the Police Service from arresting Sharma.

The Attorney General said he noted the Newsday report “with concern.”

Jeremie said he considered the matter of the telephone exchanges to be “a most disturbing development relating to the rights of the general citizenry to equality of treatment before the law and the right to access of the court.” Indeed the terms “equal treatment before the law and equal access to the courts” are mentioned no less than three times in the four paragraphs of release.

Jeremie concluded his statement yesterday by saying that:

“In keeping with his portfolio responsibility for the administration of justice the Attorney General has been directed by the Cabinet to take immediate action in this matter and assures the public of the Government’s continuing commitment to the fundamental constitutional principle of equality of access to a properly functioning system of justice for all of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.”

The publication of the telephone exchanges led to a meeting between the Prime Minister, Patrick Manning and the Presi-dent, George Maxwell Richards and to the summoning of a meeting of the National Security Council on Friday.

Commentators have suggested that the telephone records disclosed by the Newsday are “troubling,” and in those circumstances there is a debate as to whether so-called privacy considerations can prevail in a matter that has received such widespread attention.