Stoking the flames

A WEEK ago, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar sought to stoke political fires in the matter of the Attorney General's controversial procedural error in the long-running Piarco corruption case.

The Law Association hosted a special general meeting to vote on a no-confidence motion in the AG and a motion to call for his resignation.

The motions were voted down by a narrow margin and the Opposition Leader is correct to note that the vote fell far short of an endorsement of AG Armour's performance.

Mrs Persad-Bissessar began her political attack on the association on the podium at the UNC's Virtual Report last Monday, denouncing those lawyers who voted against the motions and accusing them of "embarrassing themselves in desperation to eat ah food."

Mrs Persad-Bissessar wasn't the only lawyer aligned with the party to publicly chastise the failure of the motions brought against the AG, but hers carried the weight of national leadership.

Beyond that is the untidiness of Mrs Persad-Bissessar attending the convocation of lawyers as a legal professional and then using information from a private meeting to respond to the failure of the motions as a politician.

It is clearly possible to be both a lawyer and a politician, but it is not so clear that it is proper and correct to use the status of senior counsel to further the goals of a political leader.

The first vigorous response to this conundrum came from senior counsel Israel Khan, who wrote a barbed retort to the Opposition Leader's assertions, decrying her statements and calling on her to return her "silk."

The response by the association on Friday was more measured, pointing out that its meeting was private, and that as a senior counsel, Mrs Persad-Bissessar is a member of the Inner Bar, with attendant expectations of comportment.

The release noted the chilling effect on the democratic voting process that might follow her public revelation of the names of members of the Inner Bar and other senior lawyers who voted against the motion.

It's unclear what the Opposition Leader hoped to achieve by trampling on the dignity and process of her substantive profession beyond gaining cheap political points.

In a series of strategic statements, Mrs Persad-Bissessar managed to take the smoulder of the Attorney General's clumsy legal errors and turn it into a blaze that threatens to consume the respect, professionalism and procedures that bring value to the legal collective represented by the Law Association.

The association is correct to call for a withdrawal of her unfortunate statements.

Yet in response, Mrs Persad-Bissessar has instead chosen to double down on her position, heedless of the damage it is doing to the integrity of the profession with further inflammatory challenges of the association's statement.