No matter how you frame it, a Ministry of Justice will inevitably lead to conflict between the executive and the judiciary, political scientist Prof Selwyn Ryan says.

Ryan, who left the Office of the Prime Minister’s round table on the working document for the latest draft constitution over the issue, made the comment yesterday, in response to statements by Prime Minister Patrick Manning in Tobago last week, that the proposed Justice Ministry will not threaten judicial independence.

Manning also said no final decision will be taken on the matter until his administration discusses it with the judiciary, but said a Justice Ministry would be key in the Government’s fight against crime.

’Once you set up a Ministry of Justice, you create incentives for the person who is in charge of that ministry to extend his power and influence. There will always be conflict no mater how you structure it. My preference would be to avoid structuring a Ministry of Justice,’ Ryan said in a telephone interview.

Instead, Ryan said he ’would be inclined more or less to the status quo’ of having the executive, through the Ministry of the Attorney General, provide funding for the judiciary and dealing with matters such as the building of courts, while leaving the day to day management of the courts up to the Chief Justice, the judges and the magistrates.

Manning had told the People’s National Movement supporters in Roxborough last week that ’there are some aspects of the administration of the judiciary that are best handled by the executive’ that do not ’encroach on judicial independence’, such as ’the architecture of the judiciary, the types of courts you have and so on’.

Yesterday, however, Ryan said, ’I don’t think I want the Chief Justice or judges involved in the procurement of buildings. There are certain things that should be done by the executive and there are certain things that are and only should be done by the judiciary and it is where to draw the line.’

As for Manning’s statement during another PNM meeting in Scarborough on Saturday night that his administration does not need to reform the constitution to establish a Justice Ministry, Ryan said that ’on the face’ of it and without the benefit of any detailed research, he thinks the Prime Minister is correct.

’The Prime Minister can designate whatever Ministry he wants and the constitution does not limit him,’ Ryan said.