Parliamentary Registrar Sabrina Phillips yesterday denied charges that she got her job as Parliamentary Registrar through "grace and favour".

Opposition MP Trevor Moniz (pictured) made the charge at a Press conference called to respond to Government Senator David Burch's charges that he had misled the public with recent comments on the ongoing controversy surrounding the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Ms Phillips denounced Mr.Moniz's remarks as "completely unfounded" saying she went through an exhaustive process as did two dozen other candidates for her job. "My position was advertised like any other position," she told The Royal Gazette. "I responded to it with 23 other applicants. We underwent a management assessment test and they short-listed from the test." More interviews were conducted before the offer was made in February last year - six months after the whole process began, she added. Ms Phillips said that she planned to issue a full statement shortly. The $75,000 - $80,000 a year post was advertised in the official gazette twice in August 2001. During his Press conference, Mr. Moniz also called on the Premier or Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans to respond to criticisms surrounding the justice system.

"One would have to be an ostrich with its head in the sand to say that it is incomprehensible that people feel the justice system is in crisis," he said.

"There's a general view that there's less law enforcement than there previously was, that standards have declined and that there's more lawlessness in the community."

He said programs such as the National Drug Commission and the Alternatives to Incarceration initiative had been "spectacular failures" and would soon "flame out and die" without committed corrective action.

"The political will has to come from the top - it has to come from the Premier."

In a Senate statement on Wednesday Sen. Burch accused Mr. Moniz of making misleading the public in the Mid Ocean News last week when he said that Government supported replacing Khamisi Tokunbo as DPP. Sen. Burch said that the appointment was non-political and in the hands of the Governor. And he characterised as a "blatant lie" Mr. Moniz's statement that the PLP wanted a black person who supported the PLP to be the DPP. Mr. Moniz retorted that even Sen. Burch's statement had not come out in support of Mr. Tokunbo.

"I can only assume that because Government has stated no support for Mr. Tokunbo, that there is no support."

He added that his criticism had not been motivated by any "evil intentions" and that he was not attacking Mr. Tokunbo personally. Mr. Moniz also claimed that the row over the DPP post had some people privately conceding that Mr. Tokunbo had to go but refused to say it publicly.

Others, he said, had been criticised for not coming out in support of Mr.Tokunbo. A handful of criminal defence lawyers have come out in Mr. Tokunbo's corner but Mr. Moniz said that the perception is that they found it fairly easy to get their clients off with Mr. Tokunbo at the helm.

Sen. Burch had stressed that Government had always supported the promotion of qualified Bermudians first but said that "grace and favour are dead" and that government was not operating a "gravy train".

Yesterday Mr. Moniz, speaking personally and not on behalf of the Opposition party, begged to differ. "Through grace and favour, people are appointed because of their ethnic backgrounds," he insisted. Asked for examples, Mr. Moniz said that Ms Phillips' job was never advertised within the Government or externally and that he had been made aware that she was the daughter of "a strong PLP supporter" and was "handpicked by the Premier".

He added that other examples of "grace and favour" appointments are not hard to find. "One only needs to look at the amount of consultants who are friends of Government to be certain that there is a gravy train."

Like the DPP post, the Parliamentary Registrar is appointed by the Governor. "All I can say is that the job was considered by the PSC (Public Service Commission) in the usual way and was appointed by the Governor," said Deputy Governor Tim Gurney. This is not the first time the office of the Parliamentary Registrar has come up in the political fray. After months of a UBP campaign for a wholesale re-registration of voters, Ms Phillips issued a statement strongly refuting the Opposition's claim that the Voters List was up to 35 percent inaccurate. She also revealed that there had been talks between her office and the party to allay their concerns but the effort had failed.

UBP Senator Leonard Santucci later backed away from the 35 percent inaccuracy estimate which was made by his party Leader Grant Gibbons, claiming it was the result of "some confusion over statistics".