'Blame Brady'
Published:Wednesday | September 15, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
Attorney-at-law Harold Brady is refusing to fade quietly into the background, despite claims by Prime Minister Bruce Golding that he is to be blamed for the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips muddle.
Yesterday, Golding faced journalists at Jamaica House and fingered Brady as the person who acted contrary to his instruction in the hiring of Manatt.
Golding also implied that the JLP had taken action against Brady.
"Mr Brady was asked to resign from all government boards. Mr Brady is no longer a member of the party," Golding said, while indicating that further action was being contemplated.
"There is a question that has been raised as to whether or not a complaint should be filed with the General Legal Council (but) that is a matter that we have not decided on yet because of certain technicalities involved," Golding said.
But a defiant Brady later told The Gleaner that he remains a member of the JLP and sits on one of its highest decision-making bodies.
"I remain a member of the JLP and a member of its Central Executive," Brady told The Gleaner.
"If I was not a member of the party, how then would they have been saying they were going to take me before disciplinary committee?" added Brady.
The attorney also rejected the prime minister's claim that he was asked to resign from all government boards.
"I resigned from most government boards in 2008 with the last resignation coming recently (Jamaica Railway Corporation) and I indicated why. It was not because I was ordered to do so," Brady said.
The Gleaner was unsuccessful last night in its efforts to get clarification on Brady's status in the party from JLP General Secretary Karl Samuda.
However, a senior JLP official said Brady was not in good financial standing and, as such, was not a party member.
"The PM did not say Brady was expelled, he said Brady is not a party member, and that is true because he has not paid his dues since January 2007," the JLP official said.
"If Brady tried to pay up now, it would go before the officers of the party who would refuse him, so for all intent and purposes, he is not a member of the party," added the JLP official who asked to remain anonymous.
In the meantime, Golding yesterday, again accepted that it was a mistake for the JLP to continue with the services of Manatt after it became clear that the law firm required a retainer.
But Golding said even at that time his instructions were clear that this should not be presented as a government matter.
"From Mr Brady went and engaged the services of Manatt, that's where it went off in directions that we did not intend and directions which, in some respects, I was learning about only after the matter was raised in Parliament and I now had to go play catch up," Golding told reporters.
He however, refused to blame Solicitor General Douglas Leys, who seemed as close to Manatt as Brady.
The conduct of Brady and Leys were two of the hot-button topics related to the extradition of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke and the engagement of Manatt which Golding faced yesterday as he again sought to convince the country that there was no effort on the part of his administration to lie or deceive in its handling of the matter.
Golding made it clear that the Government had not ruled out a commission of enquiry into the issue but said that would be decided on when the matter returns to Parliament.
But even without a commission of enquiry, Golding has already determined Leys made some mis-steps but not enough for him to be punished.
"While he (Leys) too, may have engaged in matters in relation to this that, in reflection, should have been better handled, I don't think they have reached the threshold where his legitimacy as solicitor general is called into question," Golding told journalists at Jamaica House.
Golding accepted that the email contacts involving Leys and officials of Manatt were part of what the firm is using to substantiate its claim that it was working on behalf of the Government.
But the prime minister said that has not affected his confidence in the man who assumed the office shortly after the 2007 change of administration.
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