Rowley 'not worried' about government minister suing State

THE Prime Minister says he is not concerned that Youth Development Minister Foster Cummings is suing the State, as anyone who feels they have been wronged has the right to do so. He added that Cummings did not need his permission for that.

Dr Rowley was speaking at a media conference at Whitehall, Port of Spain, in the afternoon on June 13.

Last Saturday, Cummings’s attorneys revealed he would file a civil case against the State as a private citizen for misuse of private information, breach of confidence and breach of his constitutional right to privacy stemming from the leak of a Special Branch report in 2022.

His attorney Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, said the case stemmed from the leak of the report to Opposition Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial-Ramdial, who read it out on a political platform on May 5, 2022.

Asked about it, Rowley said he was “not concerned.

“Every citizen of this country has the right to approach the court if they feel that they’ve been wronged. It doesn’t matter where you’re located, the law doesn’t exclude you.”

Rowley said Cummings was not legally advised by the Government and that he was suing the State and not the Government.

Rowley said he, too, experienced a similar “problem” when people “put gossip and lies” in the public domain about him. This information then reached the Integrity Commission and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

“You know what’s funny about that? I was naked and exposed.

“When that got to the DPP, the DPP sent it to a renowned senior counsel. You know what the senior counsel did? (They) started drafting 17 charges against me even though at the office of the DPP, nobody saw anywhere where I had been given the opportunity to respond to the allegations.”

He recalled reading about the issue in the newspaper and being shocked.

But he said, “We all have a right at the end of the day.

“Let us not get carried away by who suing who. When you go to court, you have to have facts. It’s a nice, cool, air-conditioned room, very quiet and you have to answer very specific questions.”

He said Cummings did not come to him about the matter beforehand, but he was told of the issue when it initially arose.

Rowley said he saw Cummings’s documents and was satisfied.

On comments that Cummings “could not have done what he did without the approval of the Prime Minister,” Rowley said that is “absolute rubbish...

“Minister Cummings does not need my approval to sue the State if he feels he has been wronged, neither do you or anyone in my government.”