For­mer In­dus­tri­al Court judge and chair­man of the Es­sen­tial Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Lawrence Achong, is de­fend­ing his ju­di­cial lega­cy amid ac­cu­sa­tions of po­lit­i­cal bias, warn­ing that the pow­ers and cred­i­bil­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­dus­tri­al Court are be­ing sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly weak­ened, while hint­ing at pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion against trade union lead­ers who pub­licly at­tacked him dur­ing his tenure.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Achong re­ject­ed claims from sec­tions of the labour move­ment that his rul­ings were po­lit­i­cal­ly in­flu­enced, in­sist­ing his de­ci­sions were ground­ed strict­ly in law, ev­i­dence, and eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties.

“To ac­cuse me of be­ing bi­ased to­wards the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), I think that is fool­ish­ness,” he said.