AG: UNC in 'a panic'

ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi has claimed the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) was "in a state of panic" because the country's criminal justice system has improved.

He was responding to a matter raised on the adjournment of the Senate by Opposition Senator Wade Mark on Tuesday night.

Mark alleged that judicial workers' jobs were under threat and Government was politicising the Judiciary.

Al-Rawi recalled that Opposition Senators Gerald Ramdeen and Saddam Hosein both claimed Government's efforts to improve the criminal justice system would fail. Instead, Al-Rawi said, "Maximum sentence indicators are happening hundreds at a time." He also said the first judge-only trial for a murder case had taken place, ending in an acquittal.

Al-Rawi countered the only attack against the Judiciary "comes from the UNC," in the form of Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke., whom he described as "the kindred brother to the UNC" and who regularly describes himself as a politician.

Duke is also the Tobago House of Assembly Minority Leader.

Al-Rawi said he waits to see if Duke will make good on his promise to leave the PSA and become a full-time politician.

"In this dance, the PSA represents five per cent of the Judiciary," he said, and does not deal with permanent and pensionable positions in the Judiciary or contract workers. But he added that Duke was trying to scare these people.

Al-Rawi also said, "None of the clerks of the peace are going home, because specialised positions have been created for them."

He said Government plans to amend the Judicial and Legal Services Act "to allow that entity to do the hiring of what the Public Service normally does."

He summarised the matter raised by Mark as "intellectual laziness, intellectual ill-preparedness, devoid of merit, devoid of research, devoid of truth, devoid of diligence."