Derek Achong

A so­cial me­dia ac­tivist has been giv­en the green light to sue the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over its fail­ure to re­spond to a re­quest for dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to a British law firm that was re­tained by the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment to as­sist in probes in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion in their pre­de­ces­sors’ tenure. 

In a re­cent de­ci­sion, High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son grant­ed Vishal Per­sad, who runs the blog Mil­len­ni­als for Change, leave to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view case over the is­sue. 

In his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad’s lawyer Keron Ramkhal­whan, of Ju­risX Cham­bers, claimed that his client sought the in­for­ma­tion as he was con­cerned with re­ports that Unit­ed King­dom-based at­tor­ney Kate McMa­hon and her law firm Ed­monds Mar­shall McMa­hon were con­tract­ed and fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment. 

In an ex­clu­sive re­port ear­li­er this year, this news­pa­per re­port­ed that sev­er­al probes be­ing done in con­junc­tion with the firm have been shelved due to de­lays by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in re­spond­ing to its re­quest for war­rants be­ing ex­e­cut­ed. It al­so re­port­ed that the firm had al­leged­ly re­ceived $50 mil­lion in pay­ments for the work it had done thus far. 

The probes re­lat­ed to the op­er­a­tions of the state-owned Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­BD) and the Min­istry of Sports’ con­tro­ver­sial Life­S­port pro­gramme.

Ramkhal­whan said that Per­sad was wary over the firm be­ing used by the then-gov­ern­ment to usurp the TTPS and per­se­cute po­lit­i­cal ri­vals. 

“The in­tend­ed ap­pli­cant/ap­pli­cant is of the firm view and is al­so ad­vised by his at­tor­neys at law that po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions must re­main in­su­lat­ed and in­de­pen­dent of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and dis­cre­tion, and there­fore, the re­cent me­dia re­ports that the Gov­ern­ment has con­tract­ed these pri­vate in­ves­ti­ga­tors, made them po­lice of­fi­cers, and tasked them to in­ves­ti­gate promi­nent po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents is ex­treme­ly dis­con­cert­ing,” Ramkhal­whan said. 

“Fur­ther, the is­sue raised here per­tains to the pru­dent and re­spon­si­ble al­lo­ca­tion of tax­pay­er funds, par­tic­u­lar­ly when such re­sources are be­ing ex­pend­ed on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that has not yield­ed tan­gi­ble out­comes,” he added. 

Through the law­suit, Per­sad is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice breached its statu­to­ry du­ty by fail­ing to com­mu­ni­cate a de­ci­sion on his Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing it. 

He is al­so seek­ing an or­der com­pelling that a de­ci­sion be made with­in sev­en days. 

Per­sad is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, An­war Ho­sein, and Rhea Khan.

The case is sched­uled to come up for hear­ing on Ju­ly 10.