Following up on a few former posts today...
On the issue of the government refusing to divulge the earnings of Douglas Mendes from his state contracts, the President of the Law Association had this to say:
Daly who said the issue had nothing to do with Mendes personally, stated that he was firmly of the view that the stance Government has taken was wrong for three reasons.
"It is not the place of the Executive arbitrarily to decide in the context of the operations of Parliament, what is or is not a breach of someone's rights. That is for the court not the Executive," he said.
"Secondly, the Government is obliged to account to the people through Parliament for the expenditure of every single cent of taxpayers' money. And if Government is going to make arbitrary exceptions to that rule, then where does it stop?" he asked, adding: "Will they refuse, for example to disclose the fees paid to directors of state enterprises?
"Thirdly, what goes on in Parliament is generally immune from legal proceedings. The best known example being that the law of defamation does not apply to anything said in Parliament. Logically if there is immunity from defamation, there is immunity from breach of other rights," Daly said.
And Ramesh 'Lawsuit' Maharaj did not disappoint:
Maharaj said this decision of the Cabinet not to give material information to the public will have to be challenged in the court.
Although he did make this point:
"When you (as an attorney) accept a (legal) case from the Government, you accept the implied obligation to have your fees disclosed to the public, because it is taxpayers' money. It is not a commercial operation."
On the issue of Machel Montano's assault charges:
Le Blanc's attorney, Shalini Khan, asked that the matter not be put between June 10 to 24 because her client would not be in the country, as he was scheduled to perform in Florida at the home of murdered designer Gianni Versace.
Once again we are seeing that the law is not evenly applied and that these hooligans are being allowed to dictate the terms that they are to be held accountable. Personally, I think the case ought to be held just between that period to teach the wajang that there are consequences to their actions. And if he ent turn up, jail his arse for contempt to the court.
On the issue of Martin Joseph, an almost unknown Minister of National Insecurity:
"You are seeing some development with respect to arrestses, I don't want to specify them, that you have seen some arrestses both in terms of kidnappings and in some other areas where it is a result of the changes in technology and the greater use of technology that will bring the solution to the challenges that we face," said Joseph.
For his new word "arrestses", Joseph now joins the ranks of former Education Minister Hazel Manning for her unforgettable "breakfasts-es" and also former Education Minster Adesh Nanan for his famous pronunciation of the word paradigm (para-dig-im).
Justifiable evidence you might say that the man is a fool, as if we need more evidence than the crime statistics themselves.
On the issue of UDeCOTT:
Tattoo still 'trying a ting.' I don't know if he really believes the people of TnT to be as gullible as he apparently thinks, or is he giving Calder Hart, Sunway and UDeCOTT time to do some paper shredding (and website cleanup) but he declines to answer questions posed in Parliament until he gets responses from the companies.
By the way, straight from the horses mouth:
Joseph said as of June 4, the murder rate stood at 204, a 66 per cent increase to the 123 murders last year for the same period.
He did promise in 3 years crime will decrease so we may have to put up with a further 1200 murders or so, and about 40,000 serious crimes (their figure of 80,000 for 6 yrs pro-rated). That's acceptable apparently, right? I mean, it will drop, right? Right? RIGHT? After all, last night we only had 6 murders in 16 hours.
On a personal level, I worry over family and friends who are in Trinidad and I cannot understand the minds of those who can get out but won't. Is it possible that they put greater emphasis on a Trinidadian lifestyle than on personal safety? I don't know about others; I enjoy living in England but I'd go back to Trinidad in a heartbeat - if it weren't for the crime and corruption. I fear that the lives of those I love will be taken in a random manner and lead me to lose sanity and reason, becoming one of the same persons I presently loathe. I worry that I'd work years to build assets for my family and lose it to someone willing to take a gun to the head of my mother, brother, sister, daughter. You see, I value them more.
