(Trinidad Guardian) Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, has deemed the contents of a legal letter sent to him by Auditor General Jaiwantie Ramdass as “threats” and said he will not be “intimidated” in the course of his duties.
In a response to her pre-action protocol letter sent on April 29 seeking the assurance that the State would cover her legal costs, Armour said in his letter, “Dealing first with your threat to disclose correspondence to the court, the Attorney General is not and cannot in the discharge of his public functions be intimidated by threats. His duty and responsibility is to consider all matters on which he must make a decision fairly and properly and to inform himself of all relevant matters and to make all relevant enquiries before he makes a decision. The Attorney General is confident that the honourable court would expect him to discharge his duty and responsibility in that manner.”
In her pre-action letter, Ramdass had said if the AG did not respond to her, she would seek judicial review on the AG’s inaction and failure to render a decision to seek declaratory relief with respect to unfair treatment; breach of her constitutional rights to equality of treatment and protection of the law; a declaration that the independence of her office has been compromised and breached; a declaration that she has been treated unfairly; and an order directing the State to pay her reasonable legal costs incurred in connection with this matter.
As such, she said she would disclose all documents to the court if she followed through on such action.
On April 19, as the impasse between the Ministry of Finance and the Auditor General’s office deteriorated, Armour advised Ramdass to seek independent legal counsel and gave an assurance that the State would cover reasonable legal fees.
However, five days later, on April 24, Ramdass completed the 2023 accounts, which she submitted to the Ministry of Finance and qualified the report with a disclaimer and an addendum that $780,499,791.27 of revenue could not be accounted for.
On April 28, she retained the services of former attorney general Anand Ramlogan SC and issued two pre-action letters to Government. The first was to Finance Minister Colm Imbert, asking him to retract false statements made about her in Parliament and set the public record straight. The next day, a letter was sent to Armour, to determine whether the State would cover her legal costs.
The Attorney General, in response, added that the request for legal costs requires consideration, as “any such representation raises the question of the use of public funds”.
“Your threatened litigation is one that is personal to your client and is not brought about of the inability of the Attorney General to provide her with legal advice with which he is in law authorised to provide her. Furthermore, your client did not seek such representation for your threatened proceedings before you sought same in your letter sent by electronic mail of last night (Tuesday). What is more, your letter threatening litigation indicates, inter alia, that your client sought legal advice on “the legal validity of the resolution passed by Parliament” at a time when in fact the resolution was not yet passed or even voted upon,” the letter said.
The letter noted that the AG’s instructions for this and other responses were out of consideration to Ramdass.
However, Ramdass’ attorneys have given the AG’s office until 2 pm today to respond to her request or they will seek judicial review.
Ramdass’ attorney labels Armour’s response ‘absurd’
But in a five-page response issued yesterday, Ramdass’ attorneys said the AG’s statement that he will not “be intimidated by threats” was “bizarre” and irrational.
“The issue of ‘threats’ and ‘intimidation’ might be more appropriate in the context of the Government’s conduct towards the Auditor General, as opposed to this simple statement to confirm that we intend to discharge our professional duties by disclosing pre-action correspondence to the court,” the letter said.
The letter conceded that Armour is correct that legal representation for the Auditor General will involve the use of public funds but that the Office of the Auditor General is in fact a public office.
“It is difficult to understand what is meant by your statement that, ‘Your threatened litigation is one that is personal to your client and is not brought about of the inability of the Attorney General to provide her with legal advice with which he is in law authorised to provide her.’ “This is a shocking and mind-bogglingly incomprehensible statement. How on earth could the issues that arise in this controversy be ‘personal’ to her when it concerns the performance of the official duties of the Auditor General? We are deeply concerned by this statement because it signals your intention to resile from the written undertaking which you gave by letter dated 19th April, 2024, whereby you expressly agreed to pay for her legal advice and representation,” the letter said.
“Your rationale for agreeing to pay our client’s legal fees was based on the fact that you had already given advice to the Minister of Finance on the matter. This was the correct thing to do. Your reasoning is, however, now complicated by the fact that you subsequently launched a scathing political attack against our client under the cover of Parliamentary privilege in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. You vilified our client, accused her of misconduct and assassinated her integrity, character and reputation using the most derogatory of language. Against this backdrop, your statement that our client’s request for independent legal advice and representation ‘is not brought about by the inability of the Attorney General to provide her with legal advice with which he is in law authorised to provide her’ is unreasonable and absurd.”
The letter also stressed: “No lawyer can advise and represent a client that they have publicly vilified and humiliated in such a manner on the very issues that arise in their case. The fact that you seek to do so notwithstanding these facts, is nothing short of bizarre.”