(Trinidad Express) Justice Minister Herbert Volney says his plan to retire from the Judiciary was leaked to the media after it was obtained during a tapped telephone conversation with his wife.
“In the run-up to my retirement, I had a private conversation with my boss, the Chief Justice, a private conversation,” Volney said during his contribution to the debate on the Interception of Commu-nications Bill in Parliament on Friday night.
“I advised the honourable Chief Justice that I was retiring and I would deliver my letter to him for onward transmission to his Excellency the following day I left,” he said.
“On my way home, my wife called me on my cell. Now that cell is a number, Mr Speaker, that was found to be one of the numbers that had been intercepted when the Commissioner of Police had done his investigations,” Volney said.
“When I got home, in the morning I was typing my letter of resignation to his Excellency and I got a call that all my business was in the Express. That was five in the morning,” Volney said.
“I am giving you an example of the intrusion on the privacy of citizens’ lives in this country,” he said.
On April 28, in the build-up to the May 24 general election, the Express exclusively reported on Volney’s plan to retire from the High Court and become the United National Congress candidate for St Joseph. Volney officially retired from the Judiciary on April 28.
“So here it is I have to write his Excellency the next day, apologising that my letter of retirement to him had been exposed in the public domain before he had opportunity to read it,” Volney said.
“You see, Mr Speaker, I had no connections with criminals other than to put them behind bars. That was my life, but I was a marked man because I felt, Mr Speaker, I had become an enemy of the State because I pointed out to the then government that there were certain changes that needed to be made in the criminal justice system in order for it to put more criminals behind bars. I became marked,” he said.
“I was in a lofted office. I had nothing to do with criminals except to put them behind bars, yet my private conversation found itself in the newspaper the following morning.
“How did this happen? It could only have happened, Mr Speaker, by a wiretap. Investigations, as I earlier stated, revealed that that cell had been the subject of interception. That was the PNM (People’s National Move-ment) way of dealing with their enemies,” Volney said.
Volney said the People Partnership Government was now seeking to right the wrongs of the previous government.
“There is nothing in this bill that law-abiding citizens need to fear, because what it does in simple terms, it places checks and balances upon those who are empowered to intercept persons’ private communications,” he said.
“And it simply says that a judge of the High Court must authorise, must grant a warrant to an authorised person to allow for the interception of a communication,” Volney said.
He called on all Opposi-tion Members to support the bill.
Debate on the bill was suspended around 12.30 a.m. on Saturday and is scheduled to resume on Friday.
