Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A se­nior at­tor­ney is call­ing on the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer and two for­mer min­is­ters to “bow their heads in shame,” af­ter three Ap­peal Court judges ruled yes­ter­day that the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the re-en­try pol­i­cy in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was a breach of the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of two women. They al­so or­dered that the women be com­pen­sat­ed for the time they were locked out.

Rae­han­na Lorick and Joanne Pan­tin were rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Denelle Singh, Jared Ja­groo and Natasha Bishram, who suc­cess­ful­ly ar­gued that tri­al Judge Bet­sy Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son erred when she ruled in favour of the State in 2022.

Lor­rick left for Cana­da on Feb­ru­ary 19, 2020, for med­ical treat­ment, while Pan­tin trav­elled to Mi­a­mi to help her daugh­ter on March 14, 2020. The bor­ders were closed on March 22 that year as the then-gov­ern­ment took ac­tion to keep the pan­dem­ic at bay. The women spent months out­side the coun­try be­fore they were al­lowed to re­turn.

Judges Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, Nolan Bereaux and Mark Mo­hammed found that the State had breached the women’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights un­der Sec­tions 4 (a) and (b) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which cov­er a right to lib­er­ty and a right to pro­tec­tion of the law, re­spec­tive­ly.

The com­pen­sa­tion is to be as­sessed by a judge in cham­bers. Lorick is to be com­pen­sat­ed for the pe­ri­od from May-Au­gust 5, 2020, and Pan­tin from June 11-Sep­tem­ber 9, 2020. Their le­gal costs will al­so be paid by the State, re­vers­ing the rul­ing that the women pay the State for fil­ing the claim.

In the 60-page rul­ing, Bereaux likened the mat­ter to slav­ery and in­den­tured servi­tude.

He said: “The tri­als in­flict­ed up­on our an­ces­tors by slav­ery and the slave trade, with the mass de­pri­va­tion of lib­er­ty and lives, are mat­ters of record. So too, the tri­als of in­den­ture­ship. We must nev­er sur­ren­der or com­pro­mise our hard-won rights and free­dom for which our an­ces­tors paid so dear­ly. Such com­pro­mise usu­al­ly be­gins with the most in­nocu­ous of ex­ec­u­tive ac­tions.

“As judges, we are sworn to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law. No mat­ter how com­pelling the emer­gency, the Ex­ec­u­tive must al­ways be held ac­count­able for in­fringe­ments of the rights and free­doms of our cit­i­zens. As a peo­ple, we must de­mand noth­ing less.”

The judges added that “cit­i­zens were shoot­ing in the dark, un­able to tai­lor their ap­pli­ca­tions or chal­lenge de­ci­sions ef­fec­tive­ly” with re­spect to the cri­te­ria that were made pub­lic af­ter the women filed their ini­tial claim in 2020.

Bereaux said man­ag­ing the pan­dem­ic was dif­fi­cult and re­quired mak­ing hard de­ci­sions, which neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed many peo­ple.

“Hav­ing sur­vived large­ly un­scathed, through the skil­ful ef­forts of the ex­ec­u­tive, it is now easy with hind­sight to ap­por­tion blame,” he said.

Speak­ing with the me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the judg­ment, Ram­lo­gan said it proved that the State’s han­dling of the pan­dem­ic had flaws that should be fur­ther ex­plored.

He said those in charge then, in­clud­ing for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young and for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, along with Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram, should col­lec­tive­ly “bow their heads in shame and dis­gust.”

“This judg­ment vin­di­cates their rights by say­ing that the State treat­ed them in an un­just and un­fair man­ner in breach of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. If there was no trans­paren­cy by the gov­ern­ment in how they ap­proached the ques­tion of re­open­ing the bor­ders and who would get to come in first, and how they would man­age that process, it was shroud­ed in mys­tery, se­cre­cy, and it was very ob­scure. And it pro­vid­ed fer­tile soil for favouritism, po­lit­i­cal nepo­tism, and un­fair and un­just treat­ment,” Ram­lo­gan said.

He added that the sys­tem al­lowed po­lit­i­cal fi­nanciers and friends to be al­lowed en­try, while oth­ers were de­nied.