Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Calder Hart has emerged vic­to­ri­ous in his pro­tract­ed le­gal bat­tle over ad­verse find­ings made against him by the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Las Al­turas Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment in Mor­vant.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil dis­missed a fi­nal ap­peal brought by the lone sur­viv­ing com­mis­sion­er Dr My­ron Wing-Sang Chin.

Lord Al­is­tair Clark, who de­liv­ered the board’s de­ci­sion, ruled that the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal was cor­rect to have over­ruled a judge, who had dis­missed Hart’s case over a lack of con­sul­ta­tion by the com­mis­sion be­fore it pub­lished its find­ings.

He said, “The Court of Ap­peal prop­er­ly recog­nised that Mr Hart should have been af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to, or de­fend him­self against, pro­posed ad­verse find­ings or crit­i­cism, rather than be­ing con­demned un­heard.”

The com­mis­sion of en­quiry led by Re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim, who died in June 2017, was set up to in­ves­ti­gate the con­struc­tion of the Las Al­turas Tow­ers at La­dy Young Gar­dens, Mor­vant.

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ap­point­ed the com­mis­sion af­ter two of the mul­ti-storey units of the hous­ing project be­gan falling apart af­ter con­struc­tion and were ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion.

In the com­mis­sion’s re­port, pre­sent­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2016, it stat­ed that while there were no grounds for crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings to be brought against any­one, civ­il ac­tion could be tak­en against Hart, for­mer Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Noel Gar­cia, Ude­cott and the HDC for neg­li­gence in pur­chas­ing and con­struct­ing on the un­sta­ble land.

Hart, along with Gar­cia, who served as chair­man of Ude­cott un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, filed sim­i­lar law­suits against the com­mis­sion­ers as they claimed that they were not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to ad­verse find­ings made against them be­fore the re­port was pub­lished.

Hart’s case against Wing-Sang Chin and fel­low com­mis­sion­er An­tho­ny Far­rell was re­ject­ed by High Court Judge David Har­ris weeks be­fore Gar­cia’s was up­held by Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran.

In June 2023, Ap­pel­late Judges Mark Mo­hammed, Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, and Maria Wil­son up­held Hart’s ap­peal as they found that Jus­tice Har­ris was wrong to have ruled that he wrong­ly ex­pand­ed his case over the un­fair­ness of the de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion­ers.

They al­so found nat­ur­al jus­tice and pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness re­quired that Hart be con­sult­ed be­fore pub­li­ca­tion through the is­suance of a salmon let­ter.

They al­so ruled that he had a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion to be con­sult­ed a sec­ond time even though he ini­tial­ly re­fused to tes­ti­fy be­fore the com­mis­sion be­cause he claimed that he did not have ac­cess to Ude­cott doc­u­ments to ad­dress con­cerns raised.

Wing-Sang Chin and Far­rell pur­sued the fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Privy Coun­cil, but Far­rell passed away be­fore the rul­ing was de­liv­ered.

In con­sid­er­ing the case, Lord Clark not­ed that Hart’s pre­vi­ous con­duct did not ex­cuse the com­mis­sion from its du­ty to con­sult be­fore pub­li­ca­tion.

“The fact that a per­son has not giv­en ev­i­dence does not pre­clude that per­son’s right to have no­tice and be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond in re­la­tion to ad­verse com­ments or find­ings,” Lord Clark said.

“It was in­ap­pro­pri­ate to spec­u­late about whether or not, if giv­en no­tice, he would re­spond and, if so, what he would say, or in­deed to as­sume that noth­ing he could have said would have made any dif­fer­ence,” he added.

Lord Clark al­so re­ject­ed the com­mis­sion­ers’ claim that con­sul­ta­tion with Hart would have de­layed their time­line for com­plet­ing their work.

“Nat­ur­al jus­tice and fair­ness re­quired that Mr Hart should have been giv­en no­tice and al­lowed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond, and this out­weighed any con­cerns about an ex­ten­sion of time,” he said.

Wing-Sang Chin was rep­re­sent­ed by Richard Clay­ton, KC, and Rowan Pen­ning­ton-Ben­ton.

Hart was rep­re­sent­ed by Dr Lloyd Bar­nett, An­tho­ny Bul­lock, Wei­den Da­ley, and Shay­dia Sir­jue, while the AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Daniel Feetham, KC, and Daniel Gold­blatt.