Justice Minister denies relative holds diplomatic passport

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Min­is­ter of Jus­tice De­vesh Ma­haraj has dis­missed so­cial me­dia claims that a close rel­a­tive in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty is in pos­ses­sion of a diplo­mat­ic pass­port.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the al­le­ga­tions yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied the al­le­ga­tion, re­ply­ing sim­ply, “Un­true.”

The al­le­ga­tion had sur­faced on so­cial me­dia in the day, amid height­ened pub­lic scruti­ny over the Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing re­view of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced a sweep­ing re­view of the is­suance of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports, re­veal­ing that for­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young would be af­fect­ed by the move.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the re­view was a cor­rec­tive mea­sure rather than a puni­tive one and was prompt­ed af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners ex­pressed con­cerns over the is­suance and pos­si­ble abuse of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

Ac­cord­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion found that 985 peo­ple were in pos­ses­sion of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports de­spite many not meet­ing the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria.

She ex­plained that diplo­mat­ic pass­ports are in­tend­ed for in­di­vid­u­als rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go at the high­est lev­els of the State and in­di­cat­ed that the re­view would re­sult in some hold­ers re­ceiv­ing of­fi­cial pass­ports, oth­ers re­vert­ing to or­di­nary pass­ports, while those who con­tin­ue to qual­i­fy would re­tain their diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

“Diplo­mat­ic pass­ports sig­ni­fy that the hold­er rep­re­sents the State in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” she said.

The PM added, “MP Young will there­fore re­ceive an of­fi­cial pass­port in­stead of a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. Some oth­er per­sons on the list will al­so re­ceive of­fi­cial pass­ports in­stead of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports, some will be re­moved en­tire­ly and giv­en or­di­nary pass­ports and a few will re­tain their diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.”

Young has al­ready con­firmed that he was in­struct­ed to re­turn his diplo­mat­ic pass­port.

Mean­while, for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says the Gov­ern­ment’s re­view of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports could be re­solved with a sim­ple ad­min­is­tra­tive change.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Grif­fith ar­gued that the mat­ter could be ad­dressed by en­sur­ing diplo­mat­ic pass­ports au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ex­pire at the end of an of­fice hold­er’s term.

“The diplo­mat­ic pass­port is­sue is easy to solve. Just set the ex­piry date, when is­sued, to the ap­prox­i­mate end of the term in of­fice for of­fice hold­ers and their fam­i­lies. This avoids the has­sle of hav­ing to track peo­ple down when they leave of­fice. Once it ex­pires, it be­comes use­less,” Grif­fith said.

He said he was of the strong view that for­mer of­fice hold­ers should not con­tin­ue us­ing diplo­mat­ic pass­ports af­ter leav­ing pub­lic of­fice.

“You should not be us­ing a pass­port to en­ter or leave the coun­try if it states ‘the bear­er is a min­is­ter, etc.’ when the hold­er no longer holds that po­si­tion. If they re­turn to of­fice, the pass­port can sim­ply be re­newed,” he stat­ed.

Grif­fith said the cur­rent sys­tem cre­ates un­nec­es­sary com­pli­ca­tions be­cause diplo­mat­ic pass­ports are of­ten is­sued with a va­lid­i­ty pe­ri­od that ex­ceeds the hold­er’s time in of­fice.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, visas are placed on these pass­ports, and the prob­lem ex­ists be­cause Im­mi­gra­tion puts a 10-year ex­piry date on them when the ac­tu­al term in of­fice for of­fice hold­ers is five years or less,” he said.