The vir­tu­al tri­al of a law­suit, in which the pub­lish­ers of a dai­ly news­pa­per are chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of two re­cent raids on their or­ga­ni­za­tion, had to be post­poned yes­ter­day due to tech­ni­cal is­sues.

The con­nec­tiv­i­ty is­sues, which ap­peared to em­anate from the Ju­di­cia­ry’s in­ter­net ser­vice provider, be­gan al­most as soon as Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad com­menced the case brought by One Caribbean Me­dia (OCM) and its Trinidad Ex­press news­pa­per.

Seep­er­sad even­tu­al­ly had to log in to the vir­tu­al hear­ing with his cell­phone to in­form the par­ties that he would be de­fer­ring the case to a time when in-per­sons hear­ings in court build­ings are per­mit­ted.

“I am no longer pre­pared to con­tin­ue to try to dis­charge my con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tions by bend­ing over back­wards to fa­cil­i­tate lit­i­gants and the lawyers be­cause to­day has demon­strat­ed with no un­cer­tain­ty in my mind that cer­tain changes ought to be made and un­til they are and un­til I have the dis­cre­tion to de­ter­mine what mat­ters are to be pro­ceed­ed with in-per­son or vir­tu­al­ly, I am sim­ply not go­ing to con­tin­ue as I have been,” Seep­er­sad said.

Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein, who is lead­ing the State’s le­gal team in the law­suit, al­so sub­mit­ted that the case would have bet­ter lit­i­gat­ed in an in-per­son tri­al.

Un­der re­cent Prac­tice Di­rec­tions is­sued by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie in-per­son hear­ings are on­ly per­mit­ted in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the in­ci­dent comes weeks af­ter Seep­er­sad open­ly crit­i­cised the Ju­di­cia­ry’s over-re­liance on vir­tu­al tri­als dur­ing the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Re­spond­ing to a pro­pos­al made by Seep­er­sad to host in-per­son hear­ings, Archie did not di­rect­ly for­bid the move but strong­ly ad­vised against it.

About the Case

The raids on the news­pa­per were re­lat­ed to a se­ries of in­ves­tiga­tive re­ports by jour­nal­ist Denyse Renne, which re­vealed that As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Ir­win Hack­shaw had been flagged by three lo­cal banks for sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

The re­ports al­so al­leged that Hack­saw had been moon­light­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant whilst on va­ca­tion leave with­out the per­mis­sion of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

They al­so al­leged that Hack­shaw so­licit­ed “do­na­tions” from busi­ness­es to fund an­nu­al so­cial events for po­lice of­fi­cers.

The Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau ( FIB) in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­leged­ly was to de­ter­mine who leaked the in­for­ma­tion, as Pro­ceeds of Crime Act makes it an of­fence to dis­close in­for­ma­tion about an ac­tive mon­ey-laun­der­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The “tip­ping off” of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $5 mil­lion fine and five years im­pris­on­ment.

Both Hack­shaw and the news­pa­per have de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

Hack­shaw has since been sus­pend­ed pend­ing a probe or­dered by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) has al­so been grant­ed per­mis­sion to par­tic­i­pate in the case.

MATT is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ria Mo­hammed-David­son and Michael Rooplal.

The com­pa­nies are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Sophia Chote, SC, Pe­ter Carter, Vah­ni Se­u­nath, and Dana-Marie Smith.

Rishi Dass, and Kendra Mark-Gor­don are al­so rep­re­sent­ing the AG’s Of­fice.