Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus will be al­lowed to play Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller’s Sa­van­nah Grass for the up­com­ing Panora­ma fi­nal, Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran has ruled.

Ram­cha­ran gave the de­ci­sion late last night dur­ing an emer­gency sit­ting of the High Court af­ter the at­tor­neys for Ex­o­dus filed an in­junc­tion against Pan Trin­ba­go ear­li­er in the day.

The de­ci­sion came at the same time Re­pub­lic Bank was host­ing a lime at the Tu­na­puna pa­n­yard of the four-time Panora­ma cham­pi­ons.

Ex­o­dus’ man­ag­er Ainsworth Mo­hammed said the de­ci­sion would have made last night’s lime “a lit­tle brighter” on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice around 9 pm, mo­ments af­ter Ram­cha­ran had read out his judge­ment.

“We are ac­tu­al­ly very re­lieved but I must ad­mit I felt it was a sad day and a sad week for pan and the steel­band move­ment and we don’t gloat in that kind of thing. We don’t gloat in vic­to­ries like this. We would like to see the steel­band move­ment move for­ward with strength and that is the most im­por­tant thing for us,” Mo­hammed said.

“We al­ways knew that it was our right, priv­i­lege, what­ev­er you want to call it, to change the song, the rules nev­er pre­clud­ed it, there was prece­dence for it. If it was such an im­por­tant ma­te­r­i­al part of the rules it should have been in­clud­ed in the rules that you are al­lowed to change or you are not al­lowed to change, that’s the way I see it.”

The Pan Trin­ba­go rules are silent on the is­sue.

Se­nior Coun­sel El­ton Prescott led the five-mem­ber Ex­o­dus team which in­clud­ed at­tor­ney Farai Ma­sai­sai.

“The ba­sis of the ar­gu­ments was re­al­ly fair­ness. Fair­ness and nat­ur­al jus­tice. When you make a de­ci­sion as an or­gan­i­sa­tion, it is im­por­tant that you con­sult your mem­bers and that is what the judge said,” Ma­sai­sai said af­ter­wards.

“The ba­sis of the judge­ment was that when you change your rules, con­sult your mem­bers. And even if they want to change it for 2020 they ought to con­sult the band mem­bers.”

Ex­o­dus had pre­vi­ous­ly played Austin “Su­per Blue” Lyons’ Rag Storm for the pre­lim­i­nary and semi­fi­nal of this year’s Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. The band placed sec­ond to last af­ter the semi­fi­nal with 265 points, 14 points be­hind cur­rent lead­ers and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons bpTT Rene­gades.

Mo­hammed said arranger Pel­ham God­dard has so far com­plet­ed three min­utes of the arrange­ment so far. An arrange­ment for the fi­nal is eight min­utes long.

“It’s not ful­ly arranged yet. We are about three min­utes there but we are go­ing to be there over the week­end. We will work all night to­mor­row and all day Sun­day and by the end of Sun­day I am sure we will be near to sev­en min­utes,” he said.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore was ab­sent from last night’s hear­ing as she was at the THA Pan Champs fi­nals in To­ba­go. Pan Trin­ba­go vice pres­i­dent Car­lan Hare­wood, trea­sur­er Ger­ard Mendez and ex­ter­nal re­la­tions of­fi­cer Dane Gul­ston ap­peared on be­half of the ex­ec­u­tive. At­tor­ney Christlyn Moore rep­re­sent­ed Pan Trin­ba­go.

Con­tact­ed last night, Ram­sey-Moore said Pan Trin­ba­go would abide by the de­ci­sion.

On Tues­day Ex­o­dus’ man­age­ment de­cid­ed to change the band’s tune of choice. How­ev­er, on Wednes­day Pan Trin­ba­go barred the move af­ter a unan­i­mous vote by the ex­ec­u­tive dur­ing an emer­gency meet­ing to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion.

On Thurs­day, Ex­o­dus sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Pan Trin­ba­go say­ing the de­ci­sion to bar the song was “ar­bi­trary and not rea­son­able” as there was no rule stat­ing ex­plic­it­ly that a band was al­lowed or pre­vent­ed from chang­ing its tune of choice.

Pan Trin­ba­go re­spond­ed to the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter yes­ter­day say­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion gave care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to 13 mat­ters be­fore it and ar­rived at its de­ci­sion.

While Ex­o­dus cit­ed So­lo Har­monites chang­ing its Panora­ma tune of choice on two oc­ca­sions, first­ly in 1973 and then in 1983, Pan Trin­ba­go said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was on­ly es­tab­lished in 1986 and there­fore there was no prece­dent.

Ram­cha­ran heard the mat­ter at 5 pm yes­ter­day be­fore he called the par­ties back to give a de­ci­sion at 8.39 pm.

Pan Trin­ba­go's 13 points for deny­ing Ex­o­dus re­quest:

1. The pos­si­ble ef­fect of such a change if per­mit­ted on all oth­er bands in your client's cat­e­go­ry, who could view this change as an un­fair ad­van­tage be­ing met­ed out to your client.

2. The emerg­ing pub­lic sup­port as well as pub­lic con­dem­na­tion as in­di­cat­ed on so­cial me­dia at your client's telegraphed in­ten­tion to change its tune of choice.

3. The pos­si­ble con­se­quent threats from these bands to launch a Panora­ma strike there­by putting the en­tire com­pe­ti­tion in jeop­ardy.

4. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of Pan Trin­ba­go Inc. be­ing faced with mul­ti­ple law­suits from oth­er bands in your cat­e­go­ry be­cause of a per­ceived ad­van­tage be­ing met­ed out to your client in the al­low­ing of the change of tune at this stage or at all.

5. The ad­min­is­tra­tive chaos that would en­sue if Pan Trin­ba­go Inc. were to face mul­ti­ple law­suits on the eve of the Panora­ma fi­nals, any or all of which Pan Trin­ba­go would not be in a fi­nan­cial po­si­tion to lit­i­gate and which le­gal bur­den would have a knock-on ef­fect on its abil­i­ty to pay prize monies on time.

6. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that the un­cer­tain­ty around whether bands would boy­cott the com­pe­ti­tion would lead to a con­se­quen­tial drop in pa­tron turnout, in­ter­est and rev­enues.

7. The loss of con­fi­dence in Pan Trin­ba­go Inc. as a com­pe­tent ad­min­is­tra­tive body and in the in­tegri­ty of the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion should your change in the tune of choice re­sult in your client ei­ther plac­ing high­er or low­er than it cur­rent rank­ings in the com­pe­ti­tion.

8. The ef­fect of such a de­ci­sion on the morale of play­ers in oth­er bands, both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive.

9. The ef­fect of such a de­ci­sion on the pa­trons to the Panora­ma Fi­nals and the com­mu­ni­ty of steel­band sup­port­ers.

10. That there was no sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion from any band in the his­to­ry of Pan Trin­ba­go Inc.'s man­age­ment of the com­pe­ti­tion since its in­cor­po­ra­tion in 1986.

11. Nor had any oth­er mem­ber bands raised ei­ther pri­or to or dur­ing the 2019 com­pe­ti­tion or at any time, their need for clar­i­ty on this rule or their de­sire to be able to change their tune of choice af­ter the com­mence­ment of the com­pe­ti­tion;

12. The en­tire struc­ture of the judg­ing which is in part pred­i­cat­ed on the as­sump­tion that the same song with be played by a com­peti­tor at all stages of the com­pe­ti­tion.

13. The skill and com­pe­tence of arrangers who with the guid­ance of the ad­ju­di­ca­tors com­ments, re-tai­lor their arrange­ments to suit.