Justice minister says his private conversation was illegally recorded and leaked to the media

Justice Minister Herbert Volney says his plan to retire from the Judiciary and move into politics illegally recorded during a phone conversation with his wife and leaked to the media.

He spoke about it during his contribution to the debate on the wiretapping bill.

"In the run-up to my retirement, I had a private conversation with my boss, the Chief Justice, a private conversation," Volney said.

"I advised the honourable Chief Justice that I was retiring and I would deliver my letter to him for onward transmission to his Excellency the following day I left," he said.

Voney added that on the way home his wife called him a his cellular phone. "When I got home, in the morning I was typing my letter of resignation to his Excellency and I got a call that all my business was in the Express. That was five in the morning," the minister said.

"I am giving you an example of the intrusion on the privacy of citizens' lives in this country," he said.

"So here it is I have to write his Excellency the next day, apologising that my letter of retirement to him had been exposed in the public domain before he had opportunity to read it," Volney said.

"You see, Mr Speaker, I had no connections with criminals other than to put them behind bars. That was my life, but I was a marked man because I felt, Mr Speaker, I had become an enemy of the State because I pointed out to the then government that there were certain changes that needed to be made in the criminal justice system in order for it to put more criminals behind bars. I became marked," he said.

"I was in a lofted office. I had nothing to do with criminals except to put them behind bars, yet my private conversation found itself in the newspaper the following morning.

"How did this happen? It could only have happened, Mr Speaker, by a wiretap. Investigations, as I earlier stated, revealed that that cell had been the subject of interception. That was the PNM way of dealing with their enemies," Volney said.

Volney assured the House of Representatives that the present government is trying to fix that problem with the proposed legislation. 

"There is nothing in this bill that law-abiding citizens need to fear, because what it does in simple terms, it places checks and balances upon those who are empowered to intercept persons' private communications," he said.

"And it simply says that a judge of the High Court must authorise, must grant a warrant to an authorised person to allow for the interception of a communication," Volney said.