PM: LATT action on CJ could cost taxpayers millions

THE PRIME Minister has said the legal action taken by the Law Association (LATT), in response to his decision not to invoke Section 137 of the Constitution to initiate proceedings against Chief Justice Ivor Archie, could cost taxpayers millions in legal fees.

He was speaking yesterday at a media conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s and responding to the LATT’s vote on Friday in favour of starting judicial review proceedings against the prime minister.

“This matter involving the Law Association and the way they have conducted their business here, I have no hesitation in saying that this matter has lost any public interest, purity and is a political matter.”

Dr Rowley said he was invited to be a witness in the matter, but refused.

“I received distilling of their carrying-on. I did not dismiss it, I did not act capriciously. I used taxpayers’ money, through the Office of the Attorney General, and got advice.”

Rowley stressed he got advice from outside TT, from an English Queen’s Counsel, because any advice he had received from TT would have been automatically viewed as “tainted.”

Back in July, Rowley said he did not initiate impeachment proceedings against the Chief Justice after receiving legal advice that he should not take the association’s advice to invoke Section 137 to have Archie impeached for allegations against him.

At the media conference he said he immediately transmitted his decision to the LATT “and I remain cloaked in the authority of the Constitution.”

He added: “I trust that the people of TT who are being asked to pay the legal bills will view my action as reasonable, even if you don’t agree with it.”

Rowley said the LATT had taken issue with his decision and some members had been “vulgar and obscene” in describing the legal advice he had received and which taxpayers paid for.

“And that is their right. Now they have sued the taxpayer. Because it’s not the prime minister...(and) this lawsuit of suing the prime minister and ‘Rowley being sued’ is not costing me one cent. It is costing the taxpayer. It is you, the taxpayer, who will now have to be paying the millions of dollars in legal fees to carry on this political charade. As a taxpayer myself, I just hope that if and when the law is used, and it comes forward and there are liabilities to be paid, that the taxpayer would be recompensed.”