Ken Ali

Sir El­lis Clarke, one of the ar­chi­tect of Trinidad and To­ba­go's two con­sti­tu­tions and its first Pres­i­dent, has said busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son should be tried in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sir El­lis has al­so strong­ly crit­i­cised the "pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ties" in the mat­ters per­tain­ing to Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son. The for­mer Head of State made his as­ser­tions in a writ­ten le­gal ad­vice, said to have been is­sued free of charge to rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers in the mat­ter.

He said the case for Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing the prop­er fo­rum for tri­al "is lu­cid, com­pre­hen­sive and, I would add, com­pelling." He al­so point­ed to "the glar­ing in­con­sis­ten­cy in seek­ing the ex­tra­di­tion of Ed­uar­do Hill­man-Walk­er on the ground that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the 'fo­rum con­ve­niens' (prop­er fo­rum) but re­ject­ing that very ground in or­der to ex­tra­dite Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh." Sir El­lis stressed: "It is dif­fi­cult to see how an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, ap­ply­ing the law to the facts in this mat­ter, and ig­nor­ing, as he must, ir­rel­e­vant and un­fair con­sid­er­a­tions, could fail to find that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the prop­er fo­rum." He al­so spoke out about "the con­duct of the pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ties."

He said: "The facts and cir­cum­stances set out in the rep­re­sen­ta­tions man­i­fest a de­plorable lack of ob­jec­tiv­i­ty and an un­healthy col­lu­sion by the pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ties, to en­sure that the de­fen­dants would be sub­ject­ed to the max­i­mum in­con­ve­nience and the per­ils of a pros­e­cu­tion in the US." Sir El­lis al­so chal­lenged the va­lid­i­ty of Act 12 of 2004, which amends the Ex­tra­di­tion Act (No 36 of 1985). Of the more re­cent leg­is­la­tion, he said: "It fa­cil­i­tates the de­pri­va­tion of the right of the in­di­vid­ual to life, lib­er­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son by mak­ing ad­mis­si­ble 'ev­i­dence' which oth­er­wise would not be and, there­fore, di­min­ish­ing the ju­ris­dic­tion of the mag­is­trate to de­ter­mine what is or not ad­mis­si­ble ac­cord­ing to the 'law' as de­fined."

He re­ferred specif­i­cal­ly to Sec­tion 19 A (2) and "the whol­ly un­ac­cept­able 'record of the case.'" Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son are on 95 charges per­tain­ing to the up­grade of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in the ear­ly 1990s. They have been seek­ing to avoid ex­tra­di­tion to the US to face charges. Through their at­tor­neys, they are ask­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan not to have them ex­tra­dit­ed. Just over a month ago, the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil de­clined to grant them per­mis­sion to ap­peal to the British law lords. Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son are con­test­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act. They say their mat­ter is far ad­vanced and, as a re­sult, are in­sist­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the ap­pro­pri­ate lo­ca­tion for their tri­al.

About Sir El­lis Clarke

Sir El­lis Clarke was Trinidad and To­ba­go last Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al and first Pres­i­dent. He was the lead­ing framer of both the 1962 in­de­pen­dence and 1976 re­pub­li­can con­sti­tu­tions. He al­so served as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, Deputy Colo­nial Sec­re­tary and an am­bas­sador of T&T. He is a for­mer is­land schol­ar­ship win­ner.