Jeremie: Bring it on

Responding to claims that the State is moving to initiate disciplinary action against him, Jeremie told Newsday, “I welcome an opportunity to deal with any matter of this sort in any forum.” He said it would be an entirely novel but fulfilling experience to appear before the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Association, which would hear any complaint filed by the State.

A report in yesterday’s Express newspaper quoted an unnamed source who said Jeremie had a conflict of interest and a complaint could be made against him under the Legal Profession Act, as he would have been privy to all Government information with respect to the intervention into CL Financial. The newspaper report also quoted the unnamed source who pointed out that Jeremie, as attorney general in the Patrick Manning administration, would have instructed that legal action be commenced against CL Financial chairman Lawrence Duprey on behalf of the State.

It is not clear what legal action was initiated against Duprey by the PNM administration of which Jeremie was attorney general from 2003 to 2007, and again in May 2009 to September 2010. Following the PNM’s loss at the September 2010 polls to the People’s Partnership, a commission of inquiry into the collapse of the CLF subsidiary Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) was initiated by then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

COWARDLY ATTACK’

For his part, former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, who also appears with Jeremie for the CLF shareholders, said their legal team will not be intimated.

Maharaj, in a statement on the claims of a conflict of interest by Jeremie, said he carefully studied the conflict of interest principles which are ‘abundantly clear.’ “They (the principles) suggest that Mr Jeremie has not only the right to represent his clients but his clients have the constitutional right to representation of their choice.

Mr Jeremie is a critical element of the team,” Maharaj emphasised. He accused Government of mounting ‘a desperate and cowardly attack’ on the integrity of a Senior Counsel while ‘hiding behind the title of the anonymous source.’ “An analysis of the proceedings thus far reveals his importance to the team. We shall not be intimidated by yet another of what can only be described to be ham-fisted efforts which were not pursed in court to defeat the claims of our clients and we shall continue to vigorously defend the interests of our respective clients in this matter.

“This is an attack on the independence and fearlessness of attorneys- at-law to defend their clients in the interests of justice. It is also an attack on the rule of law and the Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,” Maharaj said.