{"id":523,"date":"2008-06-05T19:37:46","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T23:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=523"},"modified":"2008-06-05T19:37:46","modified_gmt":"2008-06-05T23:37:46","slug":"march-to-secret-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=523","title":{"rendered":"March to secret Govt"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andre Bagoo
\nThursday, June 5 2008<\/i><\/p>\n

ParliamentATTORNEY 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.
\n
\n\u201cIt strikes me that this is yet another step in the Government\u2019s march towards secrecy; to keep the citizenry in the dark while using the citizens\u2019 funds,\u201d said Reginald Dumas, retired head of the public service in a telephone interview yesterday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is unacceptable in a society that has a proper respect for democracy and for its principles.\u201d <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cdetailed breakdown\u201d of the fees paid to the well-known senior counsel. <\/p>\n

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, \u201cMr 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fourteen weeks later, in refusing to give the breakdown of Mendes\u2019 fees on Tuesday, the Attorney General said Section 4c of the Constitution, which protects an individual\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d she said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution is no such bar,\u201d he said in a telephone interview. \u201cI really don\u2019t see how the Constitution could be a bar to that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat other information is the Government going to withhold by self-adjudicating that the Constitution is a bar? This is really self-adjudicating,\u201d Daly lamented. <\/p>\n

Dumas argued that the issue was really the expenditure of public money and not one of an individual\u2019s right to privacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow high do you place this bar of alleged privacy?\u201d he asked, pointing out that the salaries and other perquisites of public servants and government officials are published. <\/p>\n

\u201cHere you have a situation in which a lawyer is hired by the State, he\u2019s 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf a lawyer does work for a client in private practice that is private. But here, public monies are involved. It\u2019s 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\u2019 money is being spent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you say that it is a matter of privacy for the lawyer? What about the client? We are the client!\u201d <\/p>\n

Kenneth Lalla SC, a constitutional lawyer and former head of the Public Service Commission, agreed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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\u2019s money. I therefore find it difficult to see a… breach of privacy in this particular scenario.\u201d <\/p>\n

He described the AG\u2019s complaint over the resources that would be taken up in researching the answers for the questions as \u201ctotally irrelevant\u201d. <\/p>\n

Section 30 of the 1999 Freedom of Information Act outlines an exemption for documents requested under the Act if they \u201cwould involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information of any individual, including a deceased individual.\u201d But lawyers yesterday pointed out that this hinges on the interpretation of \u201cunreasonable\u201d and is a statute not applicable to the Parliament.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,80181.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-tt","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}