Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Of the thou­sands of cas­es de­ter­mined in the jus­tice sys­tem over the past year, two stood out among a long list of many im­por­tant mat­ters. Both in­volved po­lice of­fi­cers. 

In one case, six mem­bers of a spe­cialised polic­ing unit went on tri­al for mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga in 2011. In the oth­er, a teenage hu­man traf­fick­ing vic­tim, who was forced in­to pros­ti­tu­tion, claimed po­lice of­fi­cers were among her clients. 

Both cas­es end­ed in No­vem­ber but with very dif­fer­ent out­comes. 

Moru­ga triple mur­der tri­al 

On No­vem­ber 24, Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, and An­to­nio Ra­madin were ac­quit­ted of mur­der­ing Abi­gail John­son, Alana Dun­can, and Keron Ec­cles. 

As in all crim­i­nal tri­als, the re­sult brought mixed re­ac­tions from those in­volved in the case. 

For the of­fi­cers, who spent more than 12 years on re­mand be­fore their case came up for tri­al, the ju­ry’s de­ci­sion brought im­mense re­lief. 

“It was a try­ing time. Twelve years or 4409 days away from our fam­i­lies,” Sa­hadeo said, as he and his for­mer col­leagues were re­unit­ed with their fam­i­ly mem­bers on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain. 

For the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives, many of whom at­tend­ed every hear­ing of the case af­ter it start­ed be­fore High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine in June, the ju­ry’s ver­dicts were an atroc­i­ty. 

Ag­o­nised, the rel­a­tives made their way to the court­room ex­it well be­fore the ju­ry fore­man de­liv­ered ver­dicts for each of the of­fi­cers. 

Ec­cles’ moth­er Geral­dine was in dis­be­lief. 

“They killed my son. God don’t sleep,” she said. 

“Ask the ju­ry how much they get paid,” she added. 

When a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed her home in St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga, the fol­low­ing day, she had still not come to terms with what tran­spired. 

“It hurt. It hurt bad. I could not sleep,” she said. 

“Six po­lice of­fi­cers and no­body found them guilty, none? It is hard. It is hard, and there was ev­i­dence to show what they did.”

Dur­ing the tri­al, the of­fi­cers nev­er de­nied that they shot and killed the trio at the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore on Ju­ly 22, 2011.

Hours be­fore the shoot­ing, Dun­can, her then-boyfriend Shum­ba James, along with James’ two friends, John­son, and Ec­cles were lim­ing at sev­er­al bars near their homes in St Mary’s Vil­lage. Be­fore meet­ing up, James made sure he went to the near­by po­lice post to re­port as part of his bail con­di­tions for a rob­bery charge. 

Around 7 pm, the friends de­cid­ed to go to Bar­rack­pore to pur­chase food. James went with his friends in their car, while Dun­can, John­son and Ec­cles fol­lowed in his (James) car. 

As they passed the junc­tion, the of­fi­cers un­leashed a bar­rage of gun­shots on James’ car. James and his friends did not stop on hear­ing the gun­shots and on­ly got a brief glimpse of what was tran­spir­ing as they looked be­hind. 

The shoot­ing last­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten sec­onds and was par­tial­ly cap­tured by a CCTV cam­era from a near­by busi­ness. In the footage, shown to the ju­ry, an of­fi­cer was heard shout­ing “Don’t move” be­fore gun­shots were heard. 

The trio was pro­nounced dead at Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty al­most an hour and a half af­ter the ini­tial shoot­ing. 

The re­sponse of the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives and friends was swift. They sur­round­ed the fa­cil­i­ty and de­mand­ed an­swers. The of­fi­cers had to re­quest back­up to leave. 

Irate rel­a­tives and friends did not stop there as they blocked roads in the com­mu­ni­ty for sev­er­al days fol­low­ing the shoot­ing. 

Dur­ing the tri­al, lead pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, pre­sent­ed the ev­i­dence of two eye­wit­ness­es. Lee­ladeo Su­ru­jbal­ly was pur­chas­ing food near the junc­tion when the shoot­ing oc­curred. 

In his state­ment to po­lice and dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, Su­ru­jbal­ly claimed he heard one of the of­fi­cers shout “Shum­ba you dead tonight” be­fore they opened fire on the car.

Con­front­ed at the tri­al with CCTV footage which had clear au­dio that did not re­flect his claim, Su­ru­jbal­ly ad­mit­ted he had dif­fi­cul­ties re­mem­ber­ing the trau­mat­ic in­ci­dent but main­tained that he told the truth.

The most con­tentious wit­ness was WPC Nicole Clement, who was among the last to en­ter the wit­ness box. 

Clement, a rel­a­tive­ly ju­nior of­fi­cer, worked along­side the of­fi­cers in the San Fer­nan­do Rob­bery Squad for six months be­fore the shoot­ing. She was ini­tial­ly charged along­side them but en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). The mur­der charges were dropped and she was in­stead charged with at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice in ex­change for her tes­ti­mo­ny against her col­leagues. 

While she tes­ti­fied dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry al­most a decade ear­li­er, Clement was deemed a hos­tile wit­ness at the tri­al. Cit­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, she re­fused to tes­ti­fy and sat silent­ly for sev­er­al days as Pe­ter­son and the of­fi­cers’ lawyers Is­rael Khan, SC, and Ul­ric Sker­ritt fired ques­tions at her to no avail. 

Her ev­i­dence dur­ing the in­quiry was read to the ju­ry. 

Clement claimed her col­leagues re­ceived in­struc­tions from se­nior of­fi­cers to ap­pre­hend James, who they claimed was want­ed for a se­ries of mur­ders and was be­lieved to be “armed and dan­ger­ous”. 

She claimed that as the car James was known to have used drove past them, her col­leagues opened fire and she joined in. She al­so claimed that Dun­can and Ec­cles sur­vived the ini­tial vol­ley of gun­shots and were tak­en to a re­mote lo­ca­tion off the M2 Ring Road in Wood­land, where they were shot again, re­loaded in­to the po­lice ve­hi­cle and tak­en on a slow dri­ve to the health fa­cil­i­ty. 

Clement al­so de­tailed the steps she and her for­mer col­leagues al­leged­ly took to at­tempt to cov­er up their ac­tions in­clud­ing prepar­ing con­sis­tent state­ments and re­vis­it­ing the crime scene to co­or­di­nate their re­spons­es to in­ves­ti­ga­tors. 

In his clos­ing ad­dress, Khan de­scribed Clement as a patho­log­i­cal liar and re­ferred to the fact that months be­fore the tri­al, she wrote DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, in­di­cat­ing that she would not tes­ti­fy.

Khan said Clement pro­vid­ed a state­ment in which she claimed to have been the “mas­ter­mind” and threat­ened her col­leagues in­to ex­e­cut­ing the two friends af­ter the ini­tial shoot­ing. 

“She is crazy. I don’t think any­one here is so crazy as to be­lieve what she said,” he told the court

How­ev­er, Pe­ter­son had more faith in the State’s case.

“She nev­er said that she lied,” he said and called on the ju­rors to con­sid­er the cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence, in­clud­ing spent shells found at the sec­ond crime scene which he claimed cor­rob­o­rat­ed Clement’s claims. 

The ju­rors took a lit­tle over half an hour to re­turn with unan­i­mous not-guilty ver­dicts for the of­fi­cers. 

It re­mains to be seen what ac­tion, if any, DPP Gas­pard is go­ing to take about Clement, whose sen­tenc­ing for the less­er charge was de­ferred pend­ing the out­come of her col­leagues’ tri­al. 

Less than a week af­ter the tri­al, her civ­il law­suit against the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was dis­missed by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad. 

In that case, Clement claimed that while she was in the Jus­tice Pro­tec­tion Pro­gramme await­ing the tri­al, the se­cu­ri­ty de­tail at the safe house she was be­ing held in was re­moved in No­vem­ber last year. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that her case be­came aca­d­e­m­ic af­ter the tri­al was com­plet­ed. 

Clement still has a pend­ing case against the DPP’s Of­fice over its al­leged fail­ure to con­tin­ue plea dis­cus­sions with her about fi­nan­cial sup­port af­ter the tri­al. 

While the out­come of the case re­mains a ma­jor dis­ap­point­ment for the trio’s rel­a­tives, they can now on­ly hope to find some so­lace in their pend­ing wrong­ful death cas­es filed against the State seek­ing $2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for each. 

When the case went to tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran in 2018, the State of­fered no ev­i­dence to chal­lenge it. How­ev­er, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran re­cused him­self be­fore de­ter­min­ing the case based on the fact that the rel­a­tives’ lawyer, Kei­th Scot­land, was a mem­ber of the le­gal team rep­re­sent­ing him in a drunk dri­ving case. 

The case has since been re­as­signed. 

First hu­man traf­fick­ing con­vic­tion 

In ear­ly No­vem­ber, Tu­na­puna res­i­dent An­tho­ny Michael Smith made his­to­ry when he be­came the first per­son con­vict­ed of hu­man traf­fick­ing in T&T.  How­ev­er, Smith was not present for sen­tenc­ing as he ab­scond­ed be­fore the tri­al end­ed be­fore Jus­tice Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son. 

He was con­vict­ed in ab­sen­tia for five charges un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act and sen­tenced to 15 years for each. 

Smith is to serve the sen­tences con­cur­rent­ly, if and when he is even­tu­al­ly ap­pre­hend­ed. 

The out­come of the case, which was held in-cam­era to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim, was an­nounced by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds on No­vem­ber 3. While Hinds laud­ed the case, Lawrence Hinds, the head of his min­istry’s Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit was at the press con­fer­ence to ex­plain how Smith seem­ing­ly man­aged to evade jus­tice. 

Smith was ini­tial­ly charged with 21 hu­man traf­fick­ing of­fences in 2016 and re­mand­ed. At the end of his pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry a lit­tle over a year lat­er, he was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for five of the charges and grant­ed bail with con­di­tions in­clud­ing house ar­rest and elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing. 

Be­fore the tri­al start­ed, Smith made an ap­pli­ca­tion to vary his bail con­di­tions so he could work. He was fit­ted with an­oth­er mon­i­tor­ing de­vice but af­ter two days of ev­i­dence in the tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Hen­der­son, Smith dis­ap­peared. 

Hinds de­tailed the steps tak­en af­ter Smith tam­pered with the de­vice at 6.32 am on Sep­tem­ber 24. 

“Fol­low­ing our stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures and all rel­e­vant checks, we ini­ti­at­ed the po­lice re­sponse mech­a­nism af­ter all at­tempts to con­tact him failed. That proved neg­a­tive, as there were no signs of Mr Smith. The po­lice con­tin­ued their ac­tions based on what they had to do and Mr Smith was no longer seen,” he said. 

A press re­lease from the Ju­di­cia­ry is­sued hours af­ter the press con­fer­ence pro­vid­ed more in­sight in­to Smith’s crimes. 

Smith came un­der the radar of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS)’s Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) af­ter de­tec­tives found the vic­tim’s pass­port in a build­ing in east Trinidad used by for­eign sex work­ers. 

The vic­tim was even­tu­al­ly lo­cat­ed.

The teen, who came from a sin­gle-moth­er home with four sib­lings, claimed that in 2015 she left school to look for a job to as­sist her fam­i­ly. She met Smith when she re­spond­ed to a clas­si­fied ad in a dai­ly news­pa­per. 

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Smith, she was told that she would need to take off all her clothes to be pho­tographed and the true na­ture of the work be­ing of­fered was sell­ing sex­u­al ser­vices.

She de­clined the of­fer and was in­stead of­fered a job as a bar­tender in Smith’s busi­ness and sub­se­quent­ly giv­en a place to stay in east Trinidad. 

“Some­time af­ter, An­tho­ny Smith plead­ed with the 16-year-old to help him with an im­por­tant client, as he had no oth­er avail­able girls that day,” the re­lease said. 

“She re­lent­ed with her first client, a for­eign na­tion­al stay­ing at a city ho­tel in the wa­ter­front area of Port of Spain.”

The teen claimed she was forced to con­tin­ue sex work while at­tend­ing school part-time and was sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and sex­u­al abuse by Smith. 

In Au­gust 2015, she man­aged to leave with some of her be­long­ings that could fit in two bags. 

“She was forced to leave be­hind her pup­py and her oth­er be­long­ings in­clud­ing her pass­port,” the re­lease said. 

In sen­tenc­ing Smith, Jus­tice Hen­der­son or­dered that tran­scripts of the pro­ceed­ings be sent to the CTU as ev­i­dence in the case re­vealed that the vic­tim’s clients in­clud­ed sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers. 

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Smith’s girl­friend claimed the vic­tim was in a re­la­tion­ship with Smith be­fore they met. The woman said Smith was an “ab­solute­ly won­der­ful per­son” who took care of her when no one else cared for her.

“There is lit­er­al­ly noth­ing bad that can be said,” she said.

“They were mak­ing it seem as though this case was very im­por­tant, so why af­ter eight years it is now im­por­tant to you all. It should have been im­por­tant from the first day,” she added. 

Mur­der con­victs

re-sen­tenced 

De­spite peren­ni­al is­sues with staffing part­ly due to key long-serv­ing staff mem­bers tak­ing up lo­cal and re­gion­al ju­di­cial ap­point­ments, the DPP’s Of­fice was still able to com­plete the re-sen­tenc­ing of more than a dozen mur­der con­victs over the past year. 

The con­victs had ben­e­fit­ed from the land­mark Privy Coun­cil rul­ing in the Ja­maican case of Pratt and Mor­gan, which on­ly per­mits ex­e­cu­tions with­in five years of con­vic­tion. The death sen­tences they re­ceived up­on con­vic­tion were com­mut­ed to life im­pris­on­ment. 

They ap­plied to be re-sen­tenced un­der an­oth­er land­mark judg­ment last year, in which the Privy Coun­cil ruled that mur­der con­victs who can no longer be ex­e­cut­ed should re­ceive de­fin­i­tive terms of im­pris­on­ment as op­posed to blan­ket life sen­tences. 

In cas­es that came up for re-sen­tenc­ing this year, many of the con­victs were freed af­ter serv­ing al­most 30 years in prison. A hand­ful did not se­cure free­dom im­me­di­ate­ly but were in­stead told the re­main­ing pe­ri­od they had to serve be­fore be­ing re­leased. 

Those re­leased in­clud­ed the coun­try’s longest-serv­ing death row in­mate, Wences­laus James who was con­vict­ed of killing a taxi dri­ver with a sledge­ham­mer dur­ing a botched rob­bery in 1992 and served a lit­tle over 31 years in prison. 

Sev­er­al of the cas­es in­volved do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. 

Par­ba­tee Dass served a lit­tle over 28 years for or­der­ing a “hit” on her es­tranged abu­sive hus­band that al­so re­sult­ed in his new love in­ter­est be­ing mur­dered. Amir Mowlah, who chopped his wife to death dur­ing a heat­ed ar­gu­ment over his in­fi­deli­ty, was freed af­ter serv­ing more than three decades in prison. 

DPP un­der fire for un­oc­cu­pied build­ing 

DPP Gas­pard came un­der crit­i­cism this year not for his of­fice’s per­for­mance in the courts but for fail­ure to re­lo­cate from the Win­sure Build­ing on Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain. 

It was re­vealed that since 2019, the Gov­ern­ment had spent al­most $55 mil­lion to rent and out­fit a more spa­cious build­ing on Park Street.

Gas­pard re­port­ed­ly ini­tial­ly agreed to move to the build­ing but he and his staff lat­er re­fused to oc­cu­py it based on a Spe­cial Branch re­port that raised se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. 

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was asked to com­ment on the is­sue sev­er­al times over the year. 

At a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing in late Oc­to­ber, he said: “I must say, I’m dis­ap­point­ed, huge­ly dis­ap­point­ed.”

“I think some­thing has to be rad­i­cal­ly wrong where the Par­lia­ment, in en­quir­ing about the per­for­mance of a cer­tain gov­ern­ment de­part­ment can be told over and over that the rea­son why he (DPP) can’t func­tion is be­cause you don’t have staff. And the rea­son they don’t have staff is be­cause ‘It have nowhere to put them’.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions in Par­lia­ment, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, said that the DPP’s Of­fice will re­main at its cur­rent lo­ca­tion with tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion be­ing pro­vid­ed for ad­di­tion­al staff un­til a long-term so­lu­tion, which is mu­tu­al­ly ac­cept­able, is found. 

“Con­sid­er­a­tion is be­ing giv­en to a site on which a prop­er build­ing will be built out for a num­ber of le­gal staff, and hope­ful­ly, the DPP, if that is ac­tu­alised, will agree to move there,” he said. 

$20 mil­lion case

with a miss­ing file 

On Jan­u­ary 30, High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der or­dered $2.1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for nine men who were ac­quit­ted of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man in 2016. 

Ar­mour was on an of­fi­cial over­seas trip at the time and called a press con­fer­ence up­on his re­turn. He claimed the out­come was due to the case file go­ing miss­ing af­ter be­ing served on a staff mem­ber of the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice in 2020. 

Ar­mour ap­point­ed for­mer High Court Judge Stan­ley John and re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Pamela Schullera-Hinds to con­duct a probe. 

In late June, John and Hinds de­liv­ered their re­port in which they made sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing the com­plete re­struc­tur­ing of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment (CLD) of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA).

Ar­mour al­so re­tained Se­nior Coun­sel Rol­ston Nel­son as he promised to at­tempt to have the out­come re­versed. 

He made good on his promise when on De­cem­ber 6, High Court Judge Joan Charles up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion to set aside the de­fault

judg­ment. Jus­tice Charles agreed that the court fil­ings were not prop­er­ly served on the AG’s Of­fice as re­quired un­der the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act. 

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the rul­ing, the men’s le­gal team filed an ur­gent ap­peal seek­ing to over­turn the rul­ing as it meant their case was dis­missed as it could not be re­filed and served out­side the four-year statu­to­ry lim­it. 

They al­so claimed the rul­ing would have an un­fore­seen ef­fect on all lit­i­ga­tion filed against the State as it was the first time such an is­sue with ser­vice was raised and up­held. 

The ap­peal is yet to come up for hear­ing. 

State wins US case

over Pi­ar­co Air­port

In March, there were two ma­jor de­vel­op­ments in cor­rup­tion cas­es re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. 

The month start­ed with DPP Gas­pard dis­con­tin­u­ing charges against for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, his wife Oma, for­mer Cab­i­net min­is­ter Car­los John and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh. 

The charges re­lat­ed to a £25,000 bribe al­leged­ly re­ceived by Pan­day and his wife and al­leged­ly paid by John and Gal­barans­ingh as an in­duce­ment con­cern­ing the air­port project.

Gas­pard said his de­ci­sion was based on the low prob­a­bil­i­ty of se­cur­ing con­vic­tions in the case. He ex­plained that sev­er­al key wit­ness­es had died and one main wit­ness is now el­der­ly and lives abroad. 

The de­ci­sion brought re­lief for Pan­day who said: “This was a bur­den hang­ing on my shoul­ders and my whole per­son­al­i­ty for 18 years. Now that it is over I have to re­con­sti­tute my life.

“I sup­pose this was a po­lit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tion. It seems that they can­not for­give me for build­ing the finest air­port in the Caribbean.”

Days lat­er, Gas­pard an­nounced plans for the three re­main­ing cas­es which had been be­fore the courts for al­most two decades. 

“I have made no de­ter­mi­na­tion ex­cept that we are pro­ceed­ing with the rest,” he said. 

Pressed fur­ther, Gas­pard ad­mit­ted that his po­si­tion might change based on evolv­ing cir­cum­stances. 

Weeks lat­er, a ju­ry in Mi­a­mi up­held the Gov­ern­ment’s civ­il as­set re­cov­ery case re­lat­ed to two con­struc­tion con­tracts and a main­te­nance con­tract for the air­port. 

The ju­ry or­dered for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son, and Unit­ed States busi­ness­man Raul Gui­ter­rez Jr to pay US$131.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

The fi­nal judg­ment was based on the US$32,385,988 in com­pen­sa­tion by the ju­ry, which had to be tripled as the rack­e­teer­ing charges were filed un­der the US’s Rack­e­teer In­flu­enced and Cor­rupt Or­gan­i­sa­tions Act (RI­CO). 

US Judge Reem­ber­to Di­az, who pre­vi­ous­ly dis­qual­i­fied AG Ar­mour from the case for down­play­ing his role in briefly rep­re­sent­ing Kuei Tung, up­held the ju­ry’s de­ci­sion. 

The trio has since ap­pealed the de­ci­sion. 

For­mer Chief Mag­is­trate wins forced res­ig­na­tion case

On Oc­to­ber 12, for­mer chief mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar se­cured her first le­gal vic­to­ry in her law­suit over be­ing pres­sured to re­sign as a High Court Judge by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC). 

Ay­ers-Cae­sar was ap­point­ed a High Court Judge in April 2017 but two weeks lat­er, she re­signed from the post amid pub­lic crit­i­cism over the 52 cas­es she had left un­fin­ished when she took up the pro­mo­tion.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar filed a law­suit in which she claimed she was co­erced in­to re­sign­ing. 

Ap­pel­late Judges Al­lan Men­don­ca, Nolan Bereaux, and Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon over­turned the de­ci­sion of Jus­tice David Har­ris, who pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed the case. The judges wrote sep­a­rate but con­sis­tent judg­ments in which they crit­i­cised the JLSC, chaired by Archie, for im­prop­er­ly and il­le­gal­ly pres­sur­ing Ay­ers-Cae­sar to re­sign.

Her lawyer Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, said he was deeply trou­bled by what tran­spired in the case and the fact that his client had to utilise every le­gal re­dress avail­able to clear her name. 

He wel­comed a fi­nal ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil, which was filed by Archie and the JLSC. 

“I think this is the kind of ap­peal that the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil will want to hear very quick­ly,” Ma­haraj said. 

CJ Archie calls for more

HR au­ton­o­my

Days be­fore the Ap­peal Court de­liv­ered its rul­ing in Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s case, CJ Archie re­newed his call for the Ju­di­cia­ry to be giv­en more free­dom to hire spe­cialised staff. 

“In the same way that we can­not fight mod­ern crime with old method­olo­gies, tools and train­ing, we can­not run a mod­ern court sys­tem with an­ti­quat­ed struc­tures and staffing mod­els,” he said. 

Archie not­ed that pre­vi­ous pleas were ig­nored. 

“This is not the first time I am do­ing this pub­licly ei­ther, but it ap­pears that the right peo­ple have not re­al­ly lis­tened up to now,” he said. 

Asy­lum seek­ers can

be de­port­ed

Over the past few years, the courts have been in­un­dat­ed with lit­i­ga­tion by Venezue­lan mi­grants seek­ing to block de­por­ta­tion for breach­ing im­mi­gra­tion laws. 

In Ju­ly, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad ruled that the Unit­ed Na­tions’ 1951 Con­ven­tion Re­lat­ing to the Sta­tus of Refugees, which this coun­try signed on to in No­vem­ber 2000, does not ap­ply. He ruled that it had to be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to lo­cal laws by Par­lia­ment to be ap­plic­a­ble. 

Since the de­ci­sion, it has been cit­ed by the State in nu­mer­ous cas­es from mi­grants. 

The rul­ing is be­ing ap­pealed. 

No more pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries

The year end­ed with the long-await­ed procla­ma­tion of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act 2011 which re­places pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries for se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences be­fore mag­is­trates with suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ings be­fore High Court Mas­ters. 

The step cou­pled with new Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules, ad­di­tion­al court­rooms for crim­i­nal tri­als as well as more judges are ex­pect­ed to ad­dress chron­ic back­logs in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. 

The procla­ma­tion on De­cem­ber 12 fol­lowed a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme for stake­hold­ers.