Even if Parliament repeals Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act 2011, people charged under the act may still walk free. If they have already applied to be set free, they can claim they are entitled to the benefit of the act, once it was in force when they applied, Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal explained yesterday.
Businessmen Ish Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson reportedly filed applications on Monday to be freed of charges relating to corruption charges in the Piarco Airport project. The alleged offences in the two related inquiries took place between 1995 and 2001. Seetahal was Interviewed at City Hall Auditorium, San Fernando, after the launch of the Drug Treatment Court pilot project.
"I am told that more than one set of persons have applied under the current law. They can claim, if the legislation is amended, that, 'We made that application under an existing law, and therefore, having made it under an existing law, we are entitled to the benefit.' "And then you will have to look at the provision of the Interpretation Act to see if a person who is entitled to a benefit under a law at the time should be deprived of that benefit."
In order to avoid this scenario, she said Parliament should, in repealing the law, make provision for that, so that the law has retroactive effect to a specific date. She said if that is not done, that would leave room for litigation. Section 34 allows those charged under the act to apply for the charges to be dropped if they allegedly committed offences more than ten years previously. Seetahal said the repeal would take some days, since the act has to go before House of Representatives, then the Senate, and the president has to assent to it.
She recalled that there was an amendment to the law in the Senate to that specific section, brought by Justice Minister Herbert Volney. "So it could not have been a blunder, in the sense that it was by inadvertence," she said. "It may have been a blunder otherwise, in that it was not expected that there would be this public understanding and reaction to that particular section for the implication. Then that might be the greater blunder which you speak."
Noting that Section 34 only applied to indictable offences, she said, "So for instance, the Integrity in Public Life Act, those offences-like for instance what Mr Panday is charged with-that's not covered, because it is a summary offence." Seetahal said under the common law there was always the option to apply to the court to stop the trial on the basis of unreasonable delay. She said Section 34 sought to introduce a ten-year limitation. "For whatever reason I don't know," she said. Seetahal said unlike common law the section did not take into account whether the defendant did things to derail the process by causing the delay.