The High Court has up­held Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy de­ci­sion con­cern­ing the clo­sure of bor­ders and man­aged re-en­try of na­tion­als un­der the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the writ­ten rul­ing by Madame Jus­tice Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well notes that “the clo­sure of the bor­ders and the man­aged re-en­try of na­tion­als are not un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and are in fact a pro­por­tion­ate re­sponse to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic”.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment…

COURT UP­HOLDS THE CON­STI­TU­TION­AL­I­TY OF BOR­DER CLO­SURE

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is pleased to an­nounce that the clo­sure of the bor­ders of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the man­aged re-en­try of na­tion­als un­der the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions have been up­held by the High Court in a writ­ten rul­ing on Mon­day 29th March 2021, by Madame Jus­tice Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well, in the mat­ter of CV2020-03855 Takeisha Clair­mont v The Min­is­ter of Health and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Es­sen­tial­ly, the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions, as de­vel­oped by the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to guard against the rav­aging ef­fects of pub­lic health risks caused by an in­fec­tious dis­ease, (which al­low for the clo­sure of the bor­ders and the ex­emp­tion process) were found to be in­tra vires the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance 1940, which is saved law and there­fore not sub­ject to con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge.

The Court went on to note that rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion are not ab­solute. They car­ry rec­i­p­ro­cal du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and may be sub­ject to such re­stric­tions as are nec­es­sary in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety, in the pub­lic in­ter­ests of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, pub­lic safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of the rights of oth­er per­sons. This ap­plies to rights such as free­dom of move­ment and en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Court there­fore found, that even if the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions were sub­ject to con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge, the clo­sure of the bor­ders and the man­aged re-en­try of na­tion­als are not un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and are in fact a pro­por­tion­ate re­sponse to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

Con­se­quent­ly, the Court there­fore, re­ject­ed and dis­missed the Claimant’s claim for ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­lief, and or­dered her to pay 25% of the State’s le­gal costs.

The Claimant was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Che Din­di­al, Alana Ram­baran and Ganesh Sa­roop.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Regi­nald Ar­mour SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Raphael Ajod­hia, Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj and Ka­dine Matthew.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.