Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 20-year-old man held un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) has dis­con­tin­ued his law­suit over be­ing de­nied ac­cess to free le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion while seek­ing to chal­lenge his de­ten­tion be­fore the State of Emer­gency (SoE) Re­view Tri­bunal.

Ja­maalee “Maly” Wil­son with­drew the case on Mon­day when it came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Robin Mo­hammed.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, the tri­bunal, through chair­man David Alexan­der, ac­cept­ed that it had the pow­er to grant SoE de­tainees le­gal aid and in­di­cat­ed it would con­sid­er Wil­son’s ap­pli­ca­tion for such.

Wil­son’s lawyer, Keron Ramkhal­whan, of Ju­ris X Cham­bers, said the case was no longer nec­es­sary, as the tri­bunal had grant­ed the re­lief his client was seek­ing.

Wil­son was is­sued a PDO on Ju­ly 18 and has been de­tained at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) since then.

Ac­cord­ing to his PDO, Wil­son was cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied as an ac­tive mem­ber of a gang. It added that the gang has ac­cess to a cache of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion and is en­gaged in home in­va­sions, shoot­ings, wound­ings, as­saults and wit­ness in­tim­i­da­tion. Wil­son was de­scribed as a se­nior mem­ber and op­er­a­tive for the gang, who, along with oth­ers, took part in armed rob­bery in a pub­lic space.

On Ju­ly 29, near­ly two weeks af­ter he was de­tained, Wil­son’s moth­er, Abena Wil­son, wrote to the tri­bunal seek­ing an ur­gent re­view of his de­ten­tion, in­di­cat­ing the fam­i­ly could not af­ford an at­tor­ney and wished to ac­cess le­gal aid.

Tri­bunal sec­re­tary Navara­nee Ali-Dookram re­spond­ed on Ju­ly 30, ad­vis­ing that the fam­i­ly should first ap­proach the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty (LAAA) for as­sis­tance. How­ev­er, the LAAA in­di­cat­ed it did not have the pow­er to pro­vide such rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Af­ter Wil­son’s lawyer sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the tri­bunal, the au­thor­i­ty and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion, LAAA chair­man Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan in­di­cat­ed that his com­plaint against the au­thor­i­ty was mis­placed.

Ramb­ha­jan re­ferred to reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the tri­bunal, which gives it (the tri­bunal) the pow­er to ap­point a le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive for a de­tainee if they do not have suf­fi­cient means to re­tain one. The reg­u­la­tions al­so state that the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the rep­re­sen­ta­tion should be cov­ered by a fund es­tab­lished by Par­lia­ment for the tri­bunal.

“Ac­cord­ing­ly, it is for the tri­bunal to ap­point le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and not the LAAA,” Ramb­ha­jan said.

The case was even­tu­al­ly filed against the tri­bunal on Sat­ur­day.

In his court fil­ings, Ramkhal­whan ar­gued that de­tainees are be­ing de­prived of a mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge their de­ten­tion be­cause no clear pro­ce­dure ex­ists for ob­tain­ing state-fund­ed le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“An en­tire class of per­sons has been de­prived of lib­er­ty by ex­ec­u­tive or­der, told that they may present their case be­fore the tri­bunal in per­son or by a le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and then left with­out any means, mech­a­nism or in­for­ma­tion by which a le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive might ac­tu­al­ly be ob­tained,” Ramkhal­whan said, as he claimed that de­tainees’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law was be­ing in­fringed.

Af­ter al­low­ing the with­draw­al of the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed com­mend­ed Ramkhal­whan for pur­su­ing the chal­lenge that clar­i­fied the po­si­tion, not­ing it could af­fect oth­er de­tainees.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed did not or­der Wil­son to pay the tri­bunal’s le­gal costs for de­fend­ing the short-lived case.

Wil­son was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by An­war Ho­sein.