Resh­ma Ra­goonath

While the state of emer­gency has tak­en away some rights, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim says cit­i­zens still have the right to ap­proach the Ju­di­cia­ry for help. Jus­tice Rahim gave the as­sur­ance in the San Fer­nan­do High Court in grant­i­ng leave for at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day to with­draw a writ of Habeas Cor­pus seek­ing ap­pear­ance be­fore the court of his client Kassiedath Kr­ish­nanan. Rahim said cit­i­zens need­ed to know that not all their rights had been erod­ed un­der the cur­rent state of emer­gency.

"At this time, in this na­tion's his­to­ry it is im­per­a­tive mem­bers of the pub­lic do not labour un­der the mis­tak­en im­pres­sion that they have sur­ren­dered all of their rights. The courts of this coun­try re­main avail­able, ready and will­ing, in the ap­pro­pri­ate cir­cum­stances, to ad­ju­di­cate mat­ters with­out fear or favour or af­fec­tion," he said. "I think that is an im­por­tant mes­sage that has to be sent out there to pro­tect the rights of cit­i­zens." Pan­day com­mend­ed Rahim for his mes­sage: "I am proud to be a cit­i­zen where we have a fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent Ju­di­cia­ry. I am hap­py that there are peo­ple in so­ci­ety who en­sure the laws are obeyed in a state of emer­gency."

Pan­day, in­struct­ed by at­tor­ney An­nusha Pan­day and Shaun Tikas­ingh, had filed the writ on Tues­day af­ter Kr­ish­nanan was kept in po­lice cus­tody since last Fri­day with­out be­ing charged. On Wednes­day Kr­ish­nanan ap­peared in the Princes Town Mag­is­trates' Court on arms charges and was grant­ed $350,000 bail. He was charged by Cpl Si­mon of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force. Yes­ter­day Pan­day sought leave to with­draw the writ. He in­di­cat­ed that he would be pur­su­ing an­oth­er civ­il ac­tion for il­le­gal de­ten­tion and that his client would be seek­ing mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion. State at­tor­ney Karel Dou­glas agreed that the writ should be with­drawn since Kr­ish­nanan was in law­ful de­ten­tion. He asked that no or­der for costs be im­posed. Dou­glas, too, com­mend­ed Jus­tice Rahim for his com­ments.