Leah So­rias

A High Court Judge has dis­missed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion filed by busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son in which they were chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act (1985).

This lat­est judg­ment means that the two men are one step clos­er to be­ing ex­tra­dit­ed to the US to face a to­tal of 95 crim­i­nal charges re­lat­ing to the con­struc­tion of Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing. The men filed the mo­tion two years ago but it was on­ly on June 14 that the case was called be­fore Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram in the Port-of-Spain High Court. That mo­tion came end­ed in the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court on Ju­ly 16. Dou­glas Mendes, SC, rep­re­sent­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in the mo­tion. Through their at­tor­ney, Fyard Ho­sein, SC, the men ar­gued that the Ex­tra­di­tion Act 1985, as amend­ed by the Ex­tra­di­tion Amend­ment Act No 12 of 2004, in­fringed their fun­da­men­tal rights and lib­er­ties pre­served un­der the con­sti­tu­tion.

Yes­ter­day, in his 24-page rul­ing, Kokaram, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court, said the act was not un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and it did not breach Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son's right to free­dom of move­ment. Kokaram said: "The act does not in­fringe the claimants right to the pro­tec­tion of the law nor equal­i­ty be­fore the law." He added that the act was con­sis­tent with the achieve­ment of sub­stan­tial jus­tice. Kok­er­am said he be­lieved the sys­tem of ex­tra­di­tion on the whole was fair. "There is no right recog­nised in the con­sti­tu­tion as the right not be ex­tra­dit­ed," Kok­er­am added.

He said ex­tra­di­tion was an ac­cept­able re­stric­tion on the free­dom of move­ment. He said Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were nei­ther ban­ished or ex­iled from T&T but were sur­ren­dered to the US in an in­ter­ac­tive process of crim­i­nal jus­tice. Gal­barans­ingh, chair­man of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd, and Fer­gu­son, for­mer CEO of the Mar­itime Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Co Ltd, are want­ed in the US on charges of con­spir­a­cy to en­gage in mon­ey-laun­der­ing and bid-rig­ging, aris­ing from the award of con­tracts in the Pi­ar­co Air­port de­vel­op­ment project.

On May 4, 2006, a Flori­da State grand ju­ry re­turned an in­dict­ment against them and six oth­ers. They were in­dict­ed on charges re­lat­ing to cor­rupt prac­tices in two of the con­struc­tion pack­ages in the project. The lo­cal Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the ex­tra­di­tion ap­peal of the men on May 3. Last month the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don re­fused to grant leave to the two busi­ness­men to ap­peal the mat­ter to the British law lords. The men have been in prison since June 15.

Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were among eight per­sons charged in 2002 with cor­rup­tion aris­ing out of the same project. The pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, which be­gan more than two years ago, is still in progress. More charges were laid in 2004 against 11 per­sons, in­clud­ing three Amer­i­cans.