"I will apologise if PM asks me to": Volney

Justice Minister Herbert Volney says is ready to apologise to Chief Justice Ivor Archie but only if Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar tells him that he must resign if he fails to make the apology.

On Sunday, Persad-Bissessar issued a media release in which she called the minister's statements in Parliament "unfortunate" and "unnecessary". And she made it clear that his views were not those of her government.

Before she left for New York Monday she told reporters she had met with Volney and "there is a course of action he will be following and Justice Volney agreed that he will issue a statement".

Volney's offensive statement suggested that there was a "sweetheart" deal between Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the former PNM Attorney General, which included an "opulent mansion" for Archie.

"Well obviously, if the Prime Minister calls on me to apologise, I must. Otherwise I must resign," the Trinidad Express quoted him as saying. "The Prime Minister will know why she will ask me to do that. I trust her judgment and when I entered politics, I said 'I trust Mrs Persad-Bissessar's judgment' and that is as far as I am prepared to say."