Government is awaiting advice on the feasibility of setting up a Special Prosecutors’ Office to handle high-profile cases but opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira has voiced concern about the move, saying that it will be yet “another attempt to witch-hunt political opponents.”
Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman made the announcement of the possible establishment of the office during a post-Cabinet press briefing on Thursday. He was at the time responding to a question about the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to handle the matters involving former Public Service Minister Jennifer Westford.
“Government has no intention of going after any one person, in particular, or set of persons, but the idea of a special prosecutor [had] been mooted several months ago,” he said.
Trotman said he believed that the ministers of Legal Affairs and Public Security have been tasked to advise Cabinet on the feasibility of such an office “because it may require the services of more than one special counsel, so to speak, for some of these matters. So it is not that we are going to appoint a special prosecutor in the case of police versus Westford for example.”
He said that doing so in specific cases “would be tantamount to witch hunting. We would prefer to have a more studied report, so that for these cases which are of course of public interest and concern, we have a strong prosecuting team to preside over them.”
