Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath has ac­cused the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) of “se­lec­tive out­rage,” over its con­cerns on mat­ters raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fol­low­ing Tues­day’s de­feat of the Gov­ern­ment’s Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath slammed LATT, say­ing, “The truth is un­avoid­able; the Law As­so­ci­a­tion has no moral au­thor­i­ty to lec­ture this Gov­ern­ment. It for­feit­ed that au­thor­i­ty long ago by se­lec­tive­ly de­fend­ing the rule of law on­ly when it suit­ed its po­lit­i­cal and fi­nan­cial in­ter­ests.”

He added, “For years, LATT failed to ful­fil its man­date to pro­tect democ­ra­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty. In­stead, it chose to play cheap par­ti­san pol­i­tics in ex­change for state briefs.