(Trinidad Express) On May 5, 2009, the Privy Council dismissed an affidavit filed by Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. According to the Privy Council ruling handed down by Lord Robert Douglas Carswell, the essence of the agreement between Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Abu Bakr on behalf of Jamaat-al-Muslimeen was that certain advantages would be given to the Jamaat out of State property, in return for securing voting support for the Prime Minister’s political party.
In the opinion of the Board, this was corrupt within the meaning and intendment of Section 3 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1987, and each party to the agreement was acting in contravention of the section.
The Board said the agreement between Manning and Abu Bakr was quite different in kind from the “pork-barrel” arrangement whereby governments take actions which are proper exercises of power, but which may favour certain areas or classes of people, in the hope and expectation of electoral support. The latter may, depending on the facts, be justifiable as a legitimate public purpose, the Board said, but the whole purpose of this agreement was to obtain electoral advantage for one political party, the PNM, by means of using State property, and as such it was clearly illegal.
On February 6, 2006, the Attorney General issued a summons on behalf of the Government, pursuant to the Remedies Against Creditors Act, for the sale of 11 parcels of land. The respondents (Bakr, et al) to the summons raised a number of issues concerning the beneficial ownership of the lands. On June 8, 2006, they filed an elaborate affidavit sworn by Abu Bakr in opposition to the summons, raising a major issue by way of defence to the claim. The substance of the defence is that in a series of meetings between Abu Bakr and the Prime Minister Mr Patrick Manning, the latter agreed or represented on behalf of the Government that the judgment debt would not be enforced. By notice dated July 12, 2006, the Attorney General applied to strike out Mr Abu Bakr’s affidavit, pursuant to RSC Order 41, rule 6, which provides that the court may order to be struck out of any affidavit “any matter which is scandalous, irrelevant or otherwise oppressive”. The basis of the application is that the affidavit seeks to aver by way of defence to the summons the making of an agreement which was illegal and unenforceable in law, with the consequence that the whole affidavit was irrelevant to the issues which could properly be considered on the hearing of the summons.
Abu Bakr stated in the affidavit that in mid-2002 or thereabouts he was approached by intermediaries on behalf of the Prime Minister and informed that the Prime Minister would like to meet him, with a view to discussing certain issues which needed to be addressed before any election, in particular mobilising young people to vote in the marginal constituencies and the escalating level of crime in certain areas. There followed a series of meetings between Mr Abu Bakr and the Prime Minister at Basilier House, the latter’s official residence.