Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie will now have to ap­point a new mem­ber to the Re­view Tri­bunal ap­point­ed to con­sid­er de­ten­tion or­ders is­sued un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The va­can­cy was re­vealed by the Ju­di­cia­ry yes­ter­day, as it sought to re­spond to a le­gal threat over the com­po­si­tion of the three-mem­ber tri­bunal that was raised by re­put­ed gang leader Ra­jaee Ali, through his lawyer Keron Ramkhal­whan.

In his pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the tri­bunal and CJ Archie on Thurs­day, Ramkhal­whan, of Ju­ris X Cham­bers, took is­sue with a mem­ber who was al­so ap­point­ed to a State com­pa­ny board.

“It is a wide­ly held pub­lic per­cep­tion, and in any event a per­cep­tion that could be held by a rea­son­ably well-in­formed ob­serv­er, that such a po­si­tion is a po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ment and that the ap­pointee is be­hold­en to the cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion that ini­ti­at­ed the State of Emer­gency,” Ramkhal­whan said.

While he was care­ful to note that he made no al­le­ga­tions or con­dem­na­to­ry re­marks in re­la­tion to the tri­bunal and its mem­bers, Ramkhal­whan said he and his client want­ed to en­sure there was no ex­ec­u­tive in­flu­ence in their work.

“This is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant giv­en that pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion laws cur­rent­ly per­mit the ex­ec­u­tive branch to de­tain cit­i­zens,” Ramkhal­whan said.

“The in­de­pen­dence and im­par­tial­i­ty of the Re­view Tri­bunal are para­mount to up­hold­ing jus­tice and main­tain­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the le­gal process,” he added.

Ramkhal­whan re­quest­ed dis­clo­sure of the pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dure adopt­ed by CJ Archie when he se­lect­ed the tri­bunal mem­bers—chair­man David Alexan­der and mem­bers Kent Sam­lal and Shiv­an­gelie Ra­moutar.

In a re­sponse, how­ev­er, the Ju­di­cia­ry’s se­nior le­gal of­fi­cer, Michelle May­ers, ad­mit­ted that Sam­lal had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion and his ap­point­ment was re­voked.

She claimed Archie was not aware that Sam­lal had been ap­point­ed as a di­rec­tor of the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny three weeks be­fore he was se­lect­ed for the tri­bunal. She al­so claimed Sam­lal failed to dis­close his ap­point­ment.

“Re­gret­tably, Mr Sam­lal’s re­sume made no men­tion of his re­cent board ap­point­ment,” she said.

She al­so not­ed there was no set­tled pol­i­cy for de­cid­ing on mem­bers.

May­ers point­ed out that al­though on­ly the chair­man is re­quired to be an at­tor­ney, all three mem­bers ap­point­ed by Archie were from the le­gal pro­fes­sion. She not­ed that Alexan­der served as a tem­po­rary judge, Ra­moutar is a lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Fac­ul­ty of Law, and Sam­lal has vast ex­pe­ri­ence in high-pro­file pub­lic law cas­es over the past 15 years.

“With re­spect to the present ap­point­ments, con­sid­er­a­tion was giv­en to the length of call to the bar, le­gal an­a­lyt­i­cal abil­i­ty and lit­i­ga­tion ex­pe­ri­ence of the at­tor­neys,” May­ers said.

Com­ment­ing on the de­ci­sion, Ramkhal­wan said, “I wel­come the de­ci­sion of the Chief Jus­tice to in­ter­vene in this mat­ter and see it as a vic­to­ry for the rule of law. As an at­tor­ney, I have a du­ty to up­hold the rule of law and de­fend my client’s in­ter­ests vig­or­ous­ly, re­gard­less of pub­lic odi­um. I urge the re­main­ing mem­bers of the tri­bunal to con­duct them­selves fair­ly and with­out fa­vor to the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion. Should they not, I will not hes­i­tate to pros­e­cute every le­gal route open to my client.”

Un­der its pro­ce­dur­al guide­lines that were pub­lished in the Gazette on Au­gust 13, the tri­bunal con­sid­ers the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the de­ten­tion or­ders pro­vid­ed by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and sub­mis­sions from the de­tainee or their le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

Since the SoE was de­clared based on the ad­vice of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro in Ju­ly, dozens of pre­ven­ta­tive or­ders have been is­sued. Some of the or­ders re­late to re­mand in­mates who were trans­ferred from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca to mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties in Ch­aguara­mas at the start of the SoE, while the oth­ers re­late to cit­i­zens who have been ac­cused of po­ten­tial crim­i­nal con­duct with­out be­ing charged with of­fences.

Last week, at­tor­ney Krys­tal Primus, who is rep­re­sent­ing prison su­per­vi­sor Garth Gua­da, who has been de­tained for al­leged­ly as­sist­ing Ali and his gang, raised con­cerns over the slow pace of the tri­bunal. She ques­tioned the tri­bunal’s de­ci­sion to set Sep­tem­ber 18 for the hear­ing of Gua­da’s re­view and re­quest­ed it (the hear­ing) be ex­pe­dit­ed.

Primus said: “I un­der­stand the Re­view Tri­bunal’s sched­ule may be busy, but due to the press­ing na­ture of this mat­ter, which would or­di­nar­i­ly form the ba­sis of a writ of habeas cor­pus (an emer­gency ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore the courts); and the se­vere con­se­quences of fur­ther de­lay, I humbly ask for your con­sid­er­a­tion for bring the re­view date for­ward.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the tri­bunal sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cat­ed it could not fa­cil­i­tate an ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing. On Thurs­day, Primus sent a le­gal let­ter to the tri­bunal and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der over Gua­da be­ing trans­ferred from the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in Ari­ma to Teteron Bar­racks. She claimed she on­ly learned of the trans­fer when she sought to vis­it him at the ECRC and prison of­fi­cials could not pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion.