Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the In­dus­tri­al Court marks its 60th year, Pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court of T&T, Jus­tice Heather Seale, has ex­pressed strong con­fi­dence in the court’s new­ly ap­point­ed judges, in­clud­ing for­mer labour min­is­ter Rudranath In­dars­ingh, who joins the bench in the Es­sen­tial Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

Speak­ing at the In­dus­tri­al Court’s spe­cial sit­ting for the open­ing of the 2025–2026 law term, Jus­tice Seale wel­comed In­dars­ingh along­side re­turn­ing judge Dr Sel­wyn Sama­roo and for­mer se­nior mag­is­trate Bramb­hanan Dubay, not­ing that each would con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the court’s ju­rispru­dence and the pro­mo­tion of fair in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions.

Giv­ing an overview of the court’s op­er­a­tions, Jus­tice Seale said trade dis­putes con­tin­ue to ac­count for the largest num­ber of cas­es filed, with 610 such dis­putes record­ed in the 2024–2025 pe­ri­od.

She al­so point­ed to staffing chal­lenges, in­clud­ing va­cant posts for court re­porters, which af­fect the time­ly de­liv­ery of judg­ments.

De­spite these hur­dles, she said the court dis­posed of 854 mat­ters dur­ing the year, re­flect­ing a clear­ance rate of 110.77 per­cent.

Jus­tice Seale said the court plays a key role in sta­bil­is­ing and im­prov­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, not­ing that the new ap­point­ments, com­bined with on­go­ing tech­no­log­i­cal up­grades and out­reach ini­tia­tives, will strength­en its abil­i­ty to serve work­ers, em­ploy­ers, and the wider pub­lic.

“Like di­a­monds, the In­dus­tri­al Court over these 60 years has shown its en­durance. The court and its judges have been able to with­stand pres­sure and ab­sorb heat, all in the in­ter­est of mak­ing bet­ter pro­vi­sion for the sta­bil­i­sa­tion, im­prove­ment, and pro­mo­tion of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions,” Jus­tice Seale said.

Dur­ing the open­ing of the term, a Port-of-Spain res­i­dent, Don Phillip, staged a protest out­side SAPA. He told Guardian Me­dia: “I want to send a mes­sage to all the judges that they need to have the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice as the fi­nal court of ap­peal in T&T. We can­not re­ly on the Privy Coun­cil.”

He added: “Every year we spend mil­lions to send mat­ters to the Privy Coun­cil just for some­body to tell you what your law is. We have a forex cri­sis in the coun­try, and we can no longer be send­ing mon­ey out. Let us han­dle our busi­ness for our­selves; we are an in­de­pen­dent coun­try.”

Phillip said sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries had re­lin­quished the Privy Coun­cil as the fi­nal court. “The CCJ head­quar­ters is right on Hen­ry Street; it’s shame­ful,” he said.