Justice Minister Herbert Volney is expected to make a statement in Parliament on Friday in reaction to the widespread condemnation over his criticism of Chief Justice Ivor Archie.
Even Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar disapproved of the minister's statement and announced publicly that Volney's views were his own and did not reflect those of the government of a Trinidad and Tobago.
And just before she left on her recent trip to New York, she told reporters Volney would make a statement on the matter. Volney said later he would do so in Parliament.
During the budget debate in the House of Representatives Volney made reference to the "opulent" home that has been provided for Ivor and suggested that it was wrong for him to accept such a perk.
He told the Trinidad Express that the media reporting of the statement created the problem. "I think that if the media had been responsible enough to report the facts as I have stated them then this conundrum would not have occurred", the paper quoted Volney as saying.
"I would never go and attack people the way the statement from the judiciary claims that I attacked this one and that one.
"The fact of the matter is that the bare record of Parliament showed that I did not. And that was mischief that was sowed in the public domain in that (Judiciary) statement that came from somebody, who I know who is not a judicial officer. Because no judicial officer would have made such a statement and claim that it represents the view of the Judiciary," the minister told the paper.
The Express reproduced what Volney said:
"From the bench of the Supreme Court, your Minister made a cry for help, known first to his boss, and then to the Government by way of ex cathedra statements and other intercessions. The message: The laws governing criminal justice are Victorian, and by then, had clearly outlived their usefulness".
"Mr Speaker I am here today for the reason that I grew to discover that speaking to the one in the exalted office was akin to speaking to John Jeremie; the then Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago. Mr Speaker, it seemed to me as though the two were the same.
"During the period leading up to "Kamla Day" - that day of redemption...it became clear to me that the then Attorney General was involving himself more and more in the business of the Judiciary, in a way straddling the line of the Montesquieun concept of the separation of powers and covertly undermining the independence of the Judiciary.
"All I wish to add on this occasion of pleasantries is that the occupation of the mansion at Goodwood Park became the quiet subject within the Judiciary of discontent, given its cost to taxpayers.
"That the preceding Chief Justices had the great humility to live in their own residences, thereby saving taxpayers the cost of supporting opulence in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year at a time of thrift for the nation.
"And the rest of the pack grumbled at the housing pittance allowed them. That was a sweetheart deal, Mr Speaker, between the then Attorney General - and do not tell me that the members opposite, including the Member for San Fernando East, was unaware of the sharing of opulent ways at a time of thrift in the nation".
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