Fran­cis Joseph

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has giv­en busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son sev­en days to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions as to why they should not be ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States to face a to­tal of 95 charges re­lat­ing to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Ter­mi­nal build­ing. Af­ter the re­fusal of the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil this week to grant leave for them to ap­peal, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al wrote to their at­tor­neys, giv­ing Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 16 of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act.

Af­ter the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the ex­tra­di­tion ap­peal on May 3, Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh rushed to the Privy Coun­cil, say­ing they had the right of ap­peal to the Law Lords. They were asked to make their sub­mis­sions in writ­ing, and if need be, the Privy Coun­cil would re­quest oral sub­mis­sions. But the Law Lords–Brown, Mance and Collins–did not want oral sub­mis­sions and re­fused the ap­pli­ca­tion for leave this week. But be­fore that, lawyers for the two men rushed off a let­ter dat­ed May 27 to Ram­lo­gan, seek­ing his in­ter­ven­tion in the mat­ter. Ram­lo­gan had been sworn in the day be­fore. In a let­ter dat­ed June 9, Ram­lo­gan re­spond­ed to the two men: "Your ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to ap­peal against the de­ci­sion of the Court of Ap­peal to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil is ex­tant. We in­tend to al­low the pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee to take their course. If the ap­peal is dis­missed, the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al will then pro­ceed to car­ry out his statu­to­ry du­ty un­der Sec­tion 16 of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act as amend­ed."

In this re­gard, Ram­lo­gan said he would main­tain the po­si­tion adopt­ed by for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and al­low Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh a rea­son­able time to con­sid­er and take any ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures in re­spect of a de­ci­sion un­der Sec­tion 16, if it were ad­verse to them.

The AG said he would al­so pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the want­ed men to make the nec­es­sary rep­re­sen­ta­tions in keep­ing with the pri­or le­gal po­si­tion adopt­ed by Je­re­mie. In a fol­low-up let­ter dat­ed June 10, Ram­lo­gan point­ed out that the Privy Coun­cil had de­nied leave to Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh. "In keep­ing with the stat­ed po­si­tion in pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence, the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is pro­ceed­ing along the le­gal ba­sis adopt­ed by his pre­de­ces­sor and now in­vites your clients to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions with­in sev­en days," the AG said. Ram­lo­gan said the re­quest for rep­re­sen­ta­tions was ne­ces­si­tat­ed by nat­ur­al jus­tice prin­ci­ples. Af­ter Ram­lo­gan re­ceives the rep­re­sen­ta­tion, he would then make a rul­ing as to whether Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh should be ex­tra­dit­ed to Flori­da. Both Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh have been on $1 mil­lion bail since their ar­rest in 2006. In an un­prece­dent­ed move, Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls grant­ed bail in an ex­tra­di­tion case, when in all oth­er sim­i­lar cas­es, the want­ed peo­ple were all kept in prison.

On May 4, 2006, a grand ju­ry in Flori­da, re­turned an in­dict­ment against Gal­barans­ingh, Fer­gu­son and six oth­ers in re­la­tion to cor­rupt prac­tices con­cern­ing two pack­ages for the con­struc­tion of the air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing. Months lat­er, six Amer­i­cans plead­ed guilty be­fore Judge Paul Huck in the Mi­a­mi Fed­er­al Court, and were sen­tenced to terms be­tween six months and six years. The case against Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son is still pend­ing. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh con­tend that they have al­ready en­dured sev­en years of do­mes­tic crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of the same al­le­ga­tions made in the Unit­ed States. They sub­mit that they have en­dured hun­dreds of days of court hear­ings and sub­stan­tial le­gal costs, stress, anx­i­ety and loss of rep­u­ta­tion.

Bat­tle far from over

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son stat­ed that their ex­tra­di­tion bat­tle was far from over. The re­lease stat­ed: "In re­la­tion to the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings that are cur­rent­ly on­go­ing with re­gards to Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has now writ­ten to the two per­sons invit­ing them through their at­tor­neys to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions as to why it would be un­just and op­pres­sive or un­con­sti­tu­tion­al to take fur­ther steps in their ex­tra­di­tion. "In his let­ter to Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh dat­ed June 10, 2010, the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in­formed them that this de­ci­sion is pro­ceed­ing along the le­gal ba­sis adopt­ed by his pre­de­ces­sor, John Je­re­mie, and that the re­quest from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for these rep­re­sen­ta­tions is ne­ces­si­tat­ed by the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice," the re­lease said. "If the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's de­ci­sion is un­favourable to Fer­gu­son and/or Gal­barans­ingh, the Ap­peal Court has al­ready ruled that they must be giv­en a rea­son­able time to ju­di­cial­ly re­view the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's de­ci­sion in the High Court and at that stage they will have the right to go all the way to the Privy Coun­cil."