Ravi Balgobin Maharaj demands information on state legal fees

SOCIAL activist and public-interest advocate, Ravi Balgobin Maharaj, is challenging the refusal to fully disclose details of attorneys paid millions by the Office of the Attorney General in legal fees during the 2024 fiscal year.

Maharaj contends some $158 million was paid to private attorneys based on statements made at a standing finance committee session in Parliament, last year.

Maharaj first asked for disclosure in November 2024. He asked for names and sums paid by the AG’s office for 2024 along with invoices.

“It must be understood and remembered that these are public funds and you are accountable to the public,” Maharaj’s attorneys said in a pre-action protocol letter.

On January 14, the ministry’s permanent secretary responded to the request, refusing full disclosure and providing only the names of 64 attorneys along with heavily redacted invoices. It did not confirm the figure repeated by Maharaj, instead pointing to expenditure of almost $1 billion from 2010 to 2015.

The Attorney General's Office cited reasons for its refusal, including personal safety concerns and potential defamatory remarks against attorneys.

Maharaj’s lawyers dismissed these justifications as “untenable, arbitrary, and irrational.”

Represented by Freedom Law Chambers, led by former AG Anand Ramlogan, SC, Maharaj has demanded unredacted names of attorneys, the specific amounts paid to them, and their invoices. His legal team argues that the public has a right to know how taxpayers' money has been spent, especially given the alarming scale of the expenditure and the prior transparency precedent set by former administrations.

On January 20, attorney Aasha Ramlal stressed that the expenditure of public funds must be open to scrutiny. She also challenged the AG’s suggestion that such disclosures could lead to reputational harm, asserting that transparency fosters accountability and public trust.

She said concerns that invoices do not indicate the nature and complexity of matters was an “obvious shortcoming” on the ministry’s part.

“The legal fees are being paid out of public funds and your ministry has a duty to ensure that the fees charged and paid are properly accounted for and justified.”

She said denying access was not the solution, suggesting the AG issue a directive to attorneys for invoices to contain adequate particulars.

“Of equal concern should have been the public’s right to know and ensure that they are being given value for money and that the fees paid are reasonable and justified.

“Your concern for the former but not the latter is, therefore, highly questionable.

“What you cannot do, however, is to refuse to account for the expenditure of public funds on the tendentious basis that the invoices you have received and paid are deficient because the attorney did not condescend to adequately particularise the number of hours spent or nature and complexity of each matter.

“If the invoices were deficient, then the simple answer is that you should not have authorised the payment of same until you were satisfied that they could withstand public scrutiny.”

Ramlal also took issue with the ministry’s safety concerns and challenged the AG’s suggestion that such disclosures could lead to reputational harm.

“We are surprised that Attorneys have objected to disclosure of how much fees they have been paid by the state.

“This is obviously self-serving and disingenuous…Our client expected them to be aware of the fact that the public has a right to know how much of its money has been spent to pay their fees. This is not a retainer by a private client – we are, after all, talking about fees paid by the state using taxpayers’ money.”

Attaching a new freedom information request, Ramlal said it was “astonishing” that the AG’s office would seek to justify the refusal of the information because of the crime situation.

“Perhaps the Attorney General is so disconnected and far removed from the raw and harsh realities of everyday terror, pain and suffering that ordinary citizens go through on a daily basis because of the runaway crime situation that he doesn’t understand that everyone is a target. “Innocent people grieve for their sons and daughters, parents and relatives who have been seamlessly murdered, robbed or assaulted on a daily basis while blood flows like water in our homes and streets.”

She said nowhere was safe.

“Unlike the people whose identities you are seeking to protect, these poor people have received no multimillion-dollar payments from the Government.

“It is therefore a bitter and cruel irony that as Attorney General, you will seek to protect the multimillionaires created by your own administration with public funds.

“After all, such persons are better able to hire private security, live in gated communities and isolate themselves from the terrifying and relentless onslaught of criminal activity.”

Ramlal asserted the “facts will speak for themselves,” but the government was not entitled to “freely spend taxpayers’ money without any form of disclosure” because of possible reputational damage.

She added, “There is no constitutional right to privacy which arises on the facts of this case and, in any event, the public interest far outweighs any privacy concerns as alleged in your response.

“Lawyers do not have a right to privacy that entitles them to keep secret the amount of money they receive from the state for work done.”

Maharaj’s legal team is prepared to pursue judicial review if their demands are not met within 30 days. They assert that withholding this information undermines democratic principles, particularly in a nation grappling with economic and social challenges. They also stress that failure to disclose raises suspicions about the propriety of public fund allocation.

In its response, the ministry also noted there was no official document recording individual payments. It also said there was no official document stating the amount of money paid to each attorney retained by the ministry in 2024.

The ministry disclosed redacted copies of invoices but withheld certain details, including names, addresses, and phone numbers of attorneys, citing privacy concerns, security risks, and the possibility of defamatory remarks against lawyers.

“Given the prevailing crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago where extortion has been increasing and lawyers have become more frequent targets of criminals, it is unreasonable to disclose to the public the fees earned by lawyers in those circumstances, particularly since many of the lawyers concerned have objected to disclosure of the information in the invoices on the ground of safety and security concerns.

“Moreover, historically such fees have been understood and treated as confidential and with privacy.

“What is more disclosure of the information contained in the invoices may expose attorneys to defamatory, uninformed and degrading statements about them such as their being called ‘eat ah food lawyers’ and being regarded as having been briefed and paid as a result of alleged political favour rather than for professional competence.”

The ministry disputed allegations of a “culture of secrecy,” referencing its prior release of legal fee information for the period June 2021 to April 2023. It also challenged Maharaj’s claims that fiscal 2024’s $158 million legal fee expenditure was among the highest in history, noting the reported average yearly expenditure of $200 million from 2010-2015 was significantly higher.