Local Lawyer calls Housing Minister’s comments “Total madness!”

Attorney-at-Law, Alberton Richelieu, has responded to calls by Housing Minister Stanley Felix for the DPP to resign, saying that in his thirty years of legal practice he had never heard of any such thing.

“For the Minister to call for the DPP to resign I think is outrageous; I think that is total madness,” Richelieu said.

The well-known legal practitioner was of the opinion that there are a lot of issues that should not be politicized.

“It is true that a politician has a duty to appeal to his crowd, but there are certain things when they are done, there is a particular protocol to be followed,” declared Richelieu who is the Head of the Criminal Bar Committee of the Saint Lucia Bar Association.

According to him, the DPP, Victoria Charles-Clarke, has a constitutional position and, in exceptional circumstances alone, she may be questioned in a court of law.

However, Richelieu said if Charles-Clarke is asked to do a particular task and she wishes to report, she can do so.

Nevertheless he asserted that there is no onus on the DPP to stand up to a politician or be on the radio to provide information in regard to a particular report.

Richelieu said that obviously the DPP has to report to someone, and when she does the Executive, if it pleases, can go to the people and announce what the DPP has decided.

Asked whether Felix should apologize for his comments, Richelieu said the Minister, who is himself an Attorney-at-Law, should indicate that he was at fault.

“It is one thing to appease political supporters but, on the other hand, what makes it worse is that Stanley Felix is a lawyer,” he stated.

However, Housing Minister Stanley Felix has said that he does not believe he did anything that warrants an apology in Wednesday evening’s call for the resignation or retirement of Director of Public Prosecutions Victoria Charles-Clarke.

Felix issued the call during a public meeting of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party on the Castries market steps.