AG wants to meet with Law Association

Attorney General John Jeremie wants to meet with the Law Association to discuss the a no-confidence vote against him, and his offer to resign.

A report in the Trinidad Guardian said Law Association President Martin Daly received a call from Jeremie seeking a meeting with the association.

“I told the Attorney General that the association would meet with him on a date convenient to all sides,” Daly is quoted as saying.

The paper said Daly plans to have several members of the council meet with Jeremie although he could not say what the association members and the Attorney General would discuss.

Jeremie offered his resignation to Prime Minister Patrick Manning after the law association passed a no-confidence vote ion him based on details of letters published in the Express newspaper between Jeremie and then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson.

By a vote of 106 to 82, the association passed a motion of no confidence but did not call for his resignation. Jeremie told the Trinidad Express he offered his resignation based on a precedent set by Russel Martineau, who was Attorney General in the Chambers administration.

Prime Minister George Chambers refused Martineau's resignation.

The association issued a statement Wednesday signed by Daly saying while it accepts that the choice of an attorney general is entirely within the discretion of the Prime Minister it rejects "the slur and disrespect that proceedings of its properly constituted special general meeting of July 1, 2009, were politically motivated.”

Daly said: "The association has already dealt with the spurious attacks on the legitimacy of the activities of its members." He added, "What concerns us deeply are the repercussions for the nation of the attitudes of intolerance that are being displayed."

Daly said the association is determined to maintain higher ground and to act in the best interests of its members and the public. "We are not intimidated and will not be intimidated into silence on issues of public concern with a legal core."