INTO POSSIBLE CORRUPTION OR OTHER SERIOUS DISHONESTY IN RECENT YEARS OF PAST AND PRESENT ELECTED MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE

COMMISSION PRESS STATEMENT

3rd October 2008

Since the Commission’s last Press Statement on 17th September, it has pressed on with the Inquiry, making due allowance for the extreme hardships and difficulties caused to many by the Hurricanes. It continues to receive submissions and approaches to give information and/or evidence.

The Commission has carried on with its work, despite court proceedings in the Territory by two elected Members of the House of Assembly to stop it doing so. Those proceedings have now come to a halt, with the TCI Court of Appeal upholding the Chief Justice’s declaration of the lawfulness of the Commission’s appointment and his refusal to restrain it from proceeding with the Inquiry. On 1st October the two Members withdrew a proposed application to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal to the Privy Council.

The Secretary and the Solicitor to the Commission will visit the Islands in the near future to obtain further information, identify and examine relevant documents, and take witness statements. Sir Robin hopes that they will be able to do that in the second half of October, but the volume of the work for the Commission, given its complement of staff and the aftermath of the Hurricanes, may delay the visit.

The responses to the Commission’s invitations in mid-August to Members of the Government and elected Members of the House of Assembly voluntarily to provide it with full and accurate disclosure of their interests have been, in general, inadequate. The Commission has requested, and is requesting, more information, which, if not provided, may prompt it to issue summonses under the Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance requiring one or more of them to give evidence and/or to produce documents in formal hearings in the Territory. Any such hearings will be held, initially, in public.

Sir Robin has also, by letter to each Member of the Government and elected Member of the House of Assembly, invited them to assist the Commission in its Inquiry with whatever information or submissions they consider might bear on its terms of reference. To date, the Commission has received little substantive response to those invitations, though it has the benefit of submissions made by two Members of the House of Assembly to the UK Foreign Affairs Committee. Sir Robin has more recently extended the same invitation to the Cabinet Secretary and Government Permanent Secretaries and Under Secretaries.

There will be, in any event, public hearings in the Territory at which evidence may be called, and at which anyone who, on due notice from the Commission, appears to it to be a subject of the Inquiry or implicated or concerned in its subject-matter, will be given an opportunity to testify. Some of those hearings may be in private.

Given the continuing fears of intimidation or victimisation expressed by many who have made submissions to the UK Foreign Affairs Committee and to the Commission, Sir Robin emphasises that those who wish to provide information to the Commission in confidence should clearly so indicate. Neither the information nor its source, nor anything that might suggest its source, will be made public without their express consent.

Anyone who, at any time, requires further information, should not hesitate to contact the Secretary at secretary@tci-inquiry.org, or by post, fax or telephone to First Floor, 26 Southampton Buildings, Holborn, London, WC2A 1PN, tel (0044) (0) 207 173 2400, fax (0044) (0) 173 2371.

The Commission will issue further Press Statements on this web-site, www.tci-inquiry.org, at about fortnightly intervals, summarising its progress. It may also post documents to the site from time to time.

Laurance O’Dea

Secretary to the Commission

3rd October 2008