Future public hearings of the existing Commission of Enquiry into the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and the construction sector will not occur even if a Validation Act is passed by the Parliament.

’This is the end of the Commission’s proceedings one way or the other,’ said the Enquiry’s chairman Prof John Uff QC, yesterday.

He was speaking at a news conference at the Winsure Building in downtown Port of Spain where the Enquiry’s three previous public hearings took place and the fourth was supposed to have begun yesterday.

Uff said a new Commission can be issued to examine in closer detail the issues that the existing one was supposed to deal with this week including a further examination of the controversial Cleaver Heights housing project and the evidence submitted by Carl Khan, in support of his claim that Hart’s brother-in-law is a director of CH Development and Construction Ltd, which received a $368 million contract for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower project.

’That (a new Commission) has not happened and as a result we do not intend to take any action with regard to those issues  unless invited to accept a fresh Commission,’ Uff said.

He said that even though the Commission was not published in the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette as required by Section 15 of the Commission of Enquiry Act, it is not illegal even as he noted that it seems to be the opinion of most of the lawyers involved in the Enquiry-that the powers under the Act are ’not available’ to it until the issue is resolved.

’The Enquiry which has taken place remains perfectly valid under the common law as an ad-hoc enquiry into the issues set out in the Commission issued by His Excellency, the President. In addition, we have received evidence in the form of statutory declaration which will remain valid independent of the Enquiries Act,’ Uff said.

He said that, as such, ’there is no reason why the (Commission’s) report should not now be prepared as it would have been had there been no defect in our appointment and that is what we intend to do’ as he declared the non-gazetting of the Commission is a ’formality which can be cured at any time’.

He said ’if and when action is taken to regularise the Enquiry, it is suggested  that publication in the Gazette at that stage will not have retrospective effect and that  a validating statute (Act) would be necessary’ even though he received a contrary opinion on the matter which is still under review.

He said he was only made aware of the non-gazetting of the Commission which he described as ’the defect’ at the weekend but ’it appears that the defect came to the notice of others one or two days earlier. He added, ’the events which led to its discovery are unknown to me. ’

’Likewise I can throw no light at all on how the omission to Gazette the appointments came about,’ Uff said.

As for the timing of the disclosure of the non-gazetting of the Commission, Uff said, ’I don’t have any observations about the timing of the revelation.’