Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Court of Ap­peal has re­served its de­ci­sion on the State’s ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to up­hold a wrong­ful dis­missal case brought by for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran and or­der to pay over $5.47 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. 

Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mo­hammed, and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar re­served their de­ci­sion af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions dur­ing a hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day. 

In the ap­peal, the State is con­tend­ing that Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad got it wrong in Oc­to­ber of last year when he ruled that the ter­mi­na­tion of Ram­bar­ran’s ap­point­ment on the ad­vice of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was “se­ri­ous­ly flawed”. 

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that Ram­bar­ran’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and to a fair hear­ing in ac­cor­dance with the prin­ci­ples of fun­da­men­tal jus­tice were breached and that the de­ci­sion was il­le­gal, null, and void. 

Ram­bar­ran was ap­point­ed Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor in Ju­ly 2012, and his con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed in De­cem­ber 2015. 

The de­ci­sion came short­ly af­ter Ram­bar­ran an­nounced that T&T was in a re­ces­sion and af­ter he re­vealed the biggest for­eign ex­change users in the coun­try.

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that if there were con­cerns that Ram­bar­ran’s al­leged con­duct was in breach of as­pects of the Cen­tral Bank Act and Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act, both had pro­vi­sions for crim­i­nal charges to be laid, which Ram­bar­ran would have had to de­fend be­fore a mag­is­trate. 

The sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion award­ed by Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, which was quite pos­si­bly the largest against the State in lit­i­ga­tion in­volv­ing the breach of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, rep­re­sent­ed the salary and ben­e­fits that Ram­bar­ran would have re­ceived had his con­tract not been ter­mi­nat­ed be­fore it was due to end in Ju­ly 2017. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions on be­half of the State, Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau point­ed out that un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, Cab­i­net could ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to re­voke the ap­point­ment of the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor on the ba­sis of mis­con­duct.

Mar­tineau claimed that Ram­bar­ran did not have to be con­vict­ed by a mag­is­trate as sug­gest­ed by Jus­tice Ram­per­sad. 

“This case is not about mis­con­duct. It is about an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard be­fore a de­ci­sion is tak­en,” Mar­tineau said.

Mar­tineau al­so de­nied that Ram­bar­ran’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were in­fringed as con­tend­ed. 

He al­so point­ed out that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad was wrong to up­hold Ram­bar­ran’s ad­di­tion­al claim over los­ing out on a po­si­tion as a se­nior ad­vi­sor to the G-24 Sec­re­tari­at in Wash­ing­ton, DC, due to Im­bert’s in­ter­ven­tion. 

While Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that Im­bert act­ed un­fair­ly when he for­ward­ed the press re­lease over the re­vo­ca­tion of Ram­bar­ran’s ap­point­ment to the of­fi­cial re­cruit­ing him, he not­ed that Ram­bar­ran was not en­ti­tled to ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion as he ap­plied for the post dur­ing the pe­ri­od he will be com­pen­sat­ed for based on the law­suit. 

Mar­tineau claimed that the re­cruit­ment was un­con­nect­ed to the process used for ter­mi­na­tion, which was un­der chal­lenge in the case. 

He stat­ed that Im­bert was con­tact­ed by the of­fi­cial and sim­ply pro­vid­ed an ac­cu­rate ref­er­ence based on what tran­spired.

“This is more than a quan­tum leap ... It is wrong and un­fair,” Mar­tineau said. 

Tak­ing aim at Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion to or­der $175,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages based on the al­leged psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects Ram­bar­ran suf­fered, Mar­tineau sug­gest­ed such was un­nec­es­sary as Ram­bar­ran should have on­ly re­ceived de­c­la­ra­tions and his salary and ben­e­fits for the re­main­der of his con­tract.  

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Ram­bar­ran’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, claimed that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion could not be fault­ed based on the ev­i­dence.

Deal­ing with his client’s al­leged breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty which led to his dis­missal, Ram­lo­gan said he (Ram­bar­ran) was forced to make the dis­clo­sure due to mount­ing pub­lic furore over for­eign ex­change short­ages.

“He was un­der the mi­cro­scope, spot­light, and im­mense pres­sure to ac­count for the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change,” Ram­lo­gan said, as he not­ed that the court could not seek to con­sid­er whether Ram­bar­ran was in breach. 

“None of the find­ings of fact were out­ra­geous and can­not be chal­lenged,” he added. 

Ram­lo­gan al­so claimed that vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages were nec­es­sary as it was proven that Im­bert was di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for his client los­ing out on the in­ter­na­tion­al job. 

In an un­re­lat­ed case, Im­bert sued Ram­bar­ran for defama­tion over a blog post­ed on his per­son­al web­site on June 9, 2019.

Ram­bar­ran al­leged that Im­bert stymied his job prospects af­ter he was ter­mi­nat­ed. 

The tri­al of that case be­gan be­fore High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran, ear­li­er this month.

It is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue next week Mon­day. 

Ram­bar­ran is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal, Vishaal Siewsaran, Asha Ram­lal, and Sharon Ram­nar­ine. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Ja­son Mootoo, SC, and Rom­ney Thomas.