United Bermuda Party Legislative Affairs Spokesman John Barritt said it is right that the post of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should be on a rolling contract.

He spoke out after the news that Khamisi Tokunbo was suing the Attorney General after it was announced his job as DPP will be advertised.

Mr. Tokunbo's lawyer, Saul Froomkin, will challenge the constitutionality of the Governor's decision not to automatically renew his three-year contract which ends in March.

But Mr. Barritt said yesterday he believed the constitution showed that the post could be a short term one.

And he said he believed the post shouldn't be held automatically until retirement to allow Government the chance to remove under performing DPPs.

He said: "Whether three years is the right number I don't know. The difficulty with that is whether the person is always looking over their shoulder as opposed to getting on with the job without fear or favour.

"Perhaps you need a mechanism for reviewing in an appropriate period. But it all goes down to whichever person is doing the job producing the results.

"It seems to me that what's triggered this is concern that things are not going as well as they should be.

"People are concerned given the incidents of serious crime in this country and the recent results in the courts of prosecutions."

He said problems were the result of the PLP Government's decision to make the Attorney General a political post and create the office of the DPP.

"What we do know is things were done in haste simply to get a political Attorney General and the Government seemed to have a candidate as their choice as DPP."

Referring to remarks made by Dame Lois in yesterday's Royal Gazette Mr. Barritt said: "It appears they reached some kind of deal with the previous Governor and they are saying the current Governor is resigning from that agreement.

"Do they support the current holder of the post? Where do they stand?"

Mr. Barritt said the split between the posts of DPP and AG had not worked and always led to suspicion that the AG could lean on prosecutors on politically sensitive matters.

He said the Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans interfered over the decision on whether to prosecute over pyramid schemes.

He said: "The AG said she would report to cabinet and take an opinion on law. As a result there has never been any prosecutions. This isn't her decision to make."

Relatively straight forward matters such as holding an inquest into the death of Westgate prisoner Steven Mansfield (Pepe) Dill were being delayed said Mr. Barritt.

"If we had a non-political AG I would like to have thought we would have got on with it a lot smarter. What's the hold up?"

He said the hold up in the criminal inquiry into alleged corruption at the Bermuda Housing Corporation also invited speculation that there had been political interference.

Last night Deputy Governor Tim Gurney was staying tight-lipped about whether Mr. Tokunbo had re-applied for the post and how many other lawyers had put in for the job.

But last month he said Governor Sir John Vereker believed that people in such senior posts should be tested against a potential peer group to see whether they remained the best person qualified for the job.