Jeremie defends PM; clashes with Young over silk

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie came to the de­fence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s le­gal cre­den­tials in Par­lia­ment ear­ly Sat­ur­day, ac­cus­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Stu­art Young of cross­ing the line be­fore ques­tion­ing Young’s own el­e­va­tion to the rank of Se­nior Coun­sel.

The heat­ed ex­change came as Je­re­mie wrapped up more than 13 hours of de­bate on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, af­ter tak­ing is­sue with com­ments Young made about Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Je­re­mie told the House he be­lieved Young had gone too far by sug­gest­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ef­fec­tive­ly award­ed her­self Se­nior Coun­sel sta­tus while serv­ing as Prime Min­is­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was el­e­vat­ed to Se­nior Coun­sel in De­cem­ber 2011 dur­ing her first term as Prime Min­is­ter.

Je­re­mie said there had been a pat­tern of re­marks di­rect­ed at Per­sad-Bisses­sar and de­scribed Young’s lat­est com­ments as be­ing “over the line.”

“I want col­leagues to think about it for a sec­ond, be­cause this is not some­thing that is triv­ial,” Je­re­mie said.

“There is a pat­tern of be­hav­iour that comes from a cer­tain in­di­vid­ual in this House, aimed and di­rect­ed at a woman who is 75 years old.”

He then chal­lenged Young’s stand­ing to ques­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

“You can speak of her in the worst and most deroga­to­ry of terms, as was done be­fore I came to this place. And then you speak of her to­day in terms of her qual­i­fi­ca­tions,” Je­re­mie said.

“And who are you to speak of any­one’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions?”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was among 16 at­tor­neys award­ed silk by then Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards in 2011. Her el­e­va­tion while serv­ing as Prime Min­is­ter at­tract­ed con­tro­ver­sy at the time, with then At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan de­fend­ing the award and ar­gu­ing that se­nior pub­lic of­fice hold­ers had tra­di­tion­al­ly been con­sid­ered for the ho­n­our.

The par­lia­men­tary ex­change then be­came in­creas­ing­ly per­son­al as Je­re­mie turned his at­ten­tion to Young’s own le­gal ca­reer.

Je­re­mie re­called a court mat­ter in­volv­ing the two at­tor­neys ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 years ago.

“With re­spect to com­ments of me be­ing a dunce, my col­leagues on this side would know me,” Je­re­mie be­gan, be­fore re­fer­ring to what he de­scribed as one of Young’s last cas­es.

Young im­me­di­ate­ly shout­ed across the floor, “Fif­teen years ago.”

“Fif­teen years ago,” Je­re­mie re­peat­ed.

Je­re­mie then said he had tak­en a red pen and “had to mark up every­thing” in the mat­ter.

Young shot back, “And lost the case.”

Je­re­mie con­tin­ued de­spite the in­ter­rup­tion, even­tu­al­ly turn­ing the ar­gu­ment back on Young’s le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence and his el­e­va­tion to Se­nior Coun­sel.

“He has done no law in the last 15 years, but ap­point­ed him­self Se­nior Coun­sel,” Je­re­mie charged.

Young was award­ed Se­nior Coun­sel sta­tus in June 2024 while serv­ing as En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

At the time, Young said he had prac­tised as an ad­vo­cate from his ad­mis­sion to the Bar in the late 1990s un­til en­ter­ing gov­ern­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2015, in­clud­ing ap­pear­ing in mat­ters that reached the Privy Coun­cil. He al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that he had se­lect­ed him­self for the ho­n­our, say­ing he was not re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing the award.

Un­der the process out­lined by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo in 2024, at­tor­neys seek­ing silk ap­ply through the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al con­sults with the Chief Jus­tice and oth­ers con­sid­ered nec­es­sary be­fore mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter, who then ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent on the ap­point­ments.