Pressure mounts on Lee

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath has fired back at the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), over its de­mand for Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee to step aside from his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio while his crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings con­tin­ue, ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion of hypocrisy.

The lat­est ex­change comes af­ter Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­move Lee from Cab­i­net fol­low­ing Wednes­day’s High Court rul­ing, which cleared the way for the pros­e­cu­tion against the min­is­ter to con­tin­ue.

But re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Padarath dis­missed Gon­za­les’ de­mand, la­belling it as iron­ic.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has al­ready spo­ken to these is­sues months ago. Mar­vin Gon­za­les calls for Lee’s re­moval while he, Gon­za­les, serves as the chair­man of the PNM, a par­ty cur­rent­ly em­broiled in a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar ex­plain your wealth scan­dal, is iron­ic. Let that sink in,” Padarath said.

He ar­gued that if Gon­za­les’ po­si­tion were ap­plied con­sis­tent­ly, the en­tire PNM par­lia­men­tary bench would have to re­sign.

“Mar­vin should eat some parsad and en­joy his Di­vali, clear­ly he has noth­ing use­ful to do,” Padarath added.

Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, in­sists the PNM’s po­si­tion is root­ed in min­is­te­r­i­al ac­count­abil­i­ty and not a pre­sump­tion of guilt.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip said any min­is­ter fac­ing se­ri­ous crim­i­nal charges should not re­main in pub­lic of­fice pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the mat­ter be­fore the courts.

He said should Lee refuse to re­sign vol­un­tar­i­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has a clear du­ty to ad­vise Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to re­voke his min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment.

Gon­za­les stressed that the Op­po­si­tion’s po­si­tion does not amount to a find­ing or pre­sump­tion of guilt against Lee, who re­mains en­ti­tled to due process and the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence.

How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the in­tegri­ty of pub­lic of­fice, pub­lic con­fi­dence in in­sti­tu­tions and stan­dards of min­is­te­r­i­al ac­count­abil­i­ty must be pre­served.

“These prin­ci­ples can­not be sac­ri­ficed for po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience,” Gon­za­les said.

He al­so point­ed to for­mer PNM min­is­ters Franklin Khan, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald and Er­ic Williams as ex­am­ples of min­is­ters who, ac­cord­ing to him, were re­quired to step aside from pub­lic of­fice when con­front­ed with crim­i­nal charges, pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of their re­spec­tive mat­ters.

Gon­za­les said the same stan­dards must ap­ply to UNC min­is­ters.

“The UNC can­not be per­mit­ted to aban­don es­tab­lished prin­ci­ples of min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty sim­ply be­cause those prin­ci­ples have now be­come po­lit­i­cal­ly in­con­ve­nient,” he said.

He warned that a fail­ure by the Prime Min­is­ter to act would rep­re­sent a se­ri­ous dere­lic­tion of her du­ty and dis­re­gard for the in­tegri­ty of pub­lic of­fice.

The con­tro­ver­sy al­so re­vives ques­tions about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s own ap­proach to min­is­te­r­i­al ac­count­abil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when com­pared with her han­dling of for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Austin “Jack” Warn­er in 2013.

At that time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had ac­cept­ed Warn­er’s res­ig­na­tion be­cause he had be­come a ma­jor dis­trac­tion to the work of her then coali­tion Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

Warn­er’s res­ig­na­tion fol­lowed the re­lease of a Con­ca­caf In­tegri­ty Com­mit­tee re­port de­tail­ing al­le­ga­tions of fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment and fraud.

Ef­forts to reach Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Lee yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, mean­while, be­lieves Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not com­pelled to re­move Lee, al­though the rul­ing presents her with two po­lit­i­cal op­tions.

“The court has ruled. As to the pol­i­tics, this can now play two ways, the PM can ask Mr Lee to re­sign as a min­is­ter and clear his name and then re­turn or she can leave him there,” Ra­goonath said.

He point­ed out that Lee was elect­ed to Par­lia­ment and would re­tain his seat as an MP even if he re­lin­quished his min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment.

He em­pha­sised that the po­lit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the rul­ing must be con­sid­ered in the con­text that Lee has a charge pend­ing against him, but has not been con­vict­ed.

Ra­goonath said he ex­pects the PNM to use the de­vel­op­ment to dis­cred­it the UNC, par­tic­u­lar­ly on is­sues of ethics, in­tegri­ty and gov­er­nance.

How­ev­er, he does not be­lieve the Op­po­si­tion’s de­mands will nec­es­sar­i­ly force Per­sad-Bisses­sar to act.

He said the ques­tion of po­lit­i­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty re­mains crit­i­cal, but the UNC could adopt the po­si­tion that there is no com­pelling rea­son for ac­tion un­til a judg­ment is de­liv­ered in the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings.

Ra­goonath al­so sug­gest­ed the Gov­ern­ment could point to pre­vi­ous ac­count­abil­i­ty con­tro­ver­sies in­volv­ing the PNM to de­fend its han­dling of the mat­ter, al­low­ing Lee to re­main in Cab­i­net un­til the court pro­ceed­ings con­clude.

He fur­ther ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment would feel suf­fi­cient­ly pres­sured to ad­dress pub­lic con­fi­dence con­cerns, giv­en that it still has more than three years re­main­ing in its cur­rent term.

Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed that cam­paign fi­nance leg­is­la­tion could even­tu­al­ly bring re­newed at­ten­tion to ques­tions of ethics and in­tegri­ty, but he does not ex­pect the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sy to nec­es­sar­i­ly prompt an im­me­di­ate change in the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the pace of the ju­di­cial process, sug­gest­ing that Lee’s mat­ter may not be heard for an­oth­er two to three years. That, he said, could leave the Gov­ern­ment fac­ing an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of po­lit­i­cal scruti­ny over the Hous­ing Min­is­ter’s con­tin­ued pres­ence in Cab­i­net.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, be­lieves calls for Lee’s re­moval are pre­ma­ture, ar­gu­ing that Wednes­day’s judg­ment does not es­tab­lish the min­is­ter’s guilt. He said Lee re­tains the right to ap­peal Jus­tice West­min James’s de­ci­sion and pur­sue fur­ther le­gal av­enues.

“The rul­ing doesn’t say any­thing against David,” Mo­hammed said, adding that the judg­ment es­sen­tial­ly al­lows the pros­e­cu­tion process to con­tin­ue af­ter the court found that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions act­ed with­in his le­gal au­thor­i­ty.

He cau­tioned against in­ter­pret­ing the dis­missal of Lee’s le­gal chal­lenge as an in­di­ca­tion of guilt.

“But just to equate that he’s guilty is not fair, it’s not right, it’s pre­ma­ture,” Mo­hammed said.

On the calls for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene, Mo­hammed main­tained that the de­ci­sion to re­move or re­as­sign a min­is­ter rests with the Prime Min­is­ter and should not be dic­tat­ed by pub­lic pres­sure.

He said if Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­cides to take away Lee’s port­fo­lio, it should be be­cause she be­lieves he is no longer suit­ed to the po­si­tion or that a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle is nec­es­sary, rather than be­cause of pres­sure from crit­ics.

Mo­hammed not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter has al­ready ex­pressed con­fi­dence in Lee. He al­so ac­cused some crit­ics of us­ing the con­tro­ver­sy as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to un­der­mine the Gov­ern­ment’s pop­u­lar­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

“This is cheap pol­i­tics by say­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter needs to do noth­ing un­less she de­cides that this is what she thinks is in her best in­ter­est and the Cab­i­net go­ing for­ward,” he said.

The con­tro­ver­sy is not new. Last Oc­to­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again de­fend­ed Lee in the mat­ter, af­firm­ing that he would re­main in her Cab­i­net de­spite mount­ing calls for his re­moval af­ter he was grant­ed $1 mil­lion bail on fraud-re­lat­ed charges.

Lee and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi were charged with con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State in con­nec­tion with the im­por­ta­tion of a Mer­cedes-Benz G63 AMG. The State al­leged that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship of the ve­hi­cle to ben­e­fit from par­lia­men­tary tax ex­emp­tions.

Lee was ini­tial­ly charged in Sep­tem­ber 2022 with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­spir­ing with Leong Poi to de­fraud the State of $1,416,292.65 in tax ex­emp­tions.

The lat­est le­gal set­back came on Wednes­day, when Jus­tice West­min James dis­missed Lee’s ap­pli­ca­tion for ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­dress.

The judge found that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard act­ed with­in his le­gal au­thor­i­ty when he ap­plied for a war­rant for Lee’s ar­rest and com­mit­tal for tri­al, af­ter the min­is­ter was dis­charged at the end of a pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry.

Jus­tice James ruled that the rel­e­vant pro­vi­sions of the for­mer In­dictable Of­fences (Pre­lim­i­nary En­quiry) Act re­mained ap­plic­a­ble to pro­ceed­ings al­ready in­sti­tut­ed against Lee and that the war­rant is­sued by Jus­tice Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas was law­ful.

The rul­ing re­moves a ma­jor le­gal ob­sta­cle to the pros­e­cu­tion pro­ceed­ing against Lee and his co-ac­cused.