Anand insists on collusion

In a letter in response to Supreme Court Registrar Jade Rodriguez, Ramlogan stuck to his position that proper protocols were not followed, despite her reassurances of the same.

Ramlogan in his letter to Rodriguez, sent on Sunday, said he was heartened to know she held the view that proper protocol was followed, but noted that it did confirm collusion between the Attorney General and the Judiciary.

Ramlogan has questioned how could Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi announce in Parliament shortly after Seepersad’s ruling on May 19 that the matter was being appealed and the hearing fixed for the following Monday. Ramlogan said Rodriguez informed him that him no appeal had been listed and in her response to his initial letter sent on May 21, said the publicising of the correspondence between both of them could lead observers to assume he intended to impute collusion between the AG and the Judiciary in the filing of Appeal Court matters.

But Ramlogan was adamant that any imputation of improper motive and collusion was as a direct result of what transpired after Justice Seepersad’s ruling “The imputation of improper motive and collusion was a direct result of the fact that secret conversations and communications took place between the court and the government’s legal advisors whilst we were kept in the dark. Your letter has in fact confirmed that this is in fact the case. This cannot be consistent with established practice and protocol and if it is, then it must be immediately changed because it is patently unfair and wrong.

My client should have been kept abreast of these developments so that he could make representations to the learned judge on his own behalf in pretty much the same way as the government was doing,” he said.

The Court of Appeal has fixed June 6 for hearing of the State’s appeal.