SASCHA WIL­SON

The Sun­shine news­pa­per, an ed­i­tor and a se­nior re­porter have been or­dered to pay for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran $150,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for pub­lish­ing a sto­ry about his di­vorce pro­ceed­ings.

Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der as­sessed the dam­ages and costs fol­low­ing judg­ment in Ram­bar­ran's favour on Feb­ru­ary 10.

Jus­tice Robin Mo­hammed or­dered the sum, which in­cludes in­ter­est and costs to be as­sessed by a Mas­ter af­ter the news­pa­per, ed­i­tor An­tho­ny Alex­is and se­nior re­porter Azad Ali, ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty. The news­pa­per is owned by for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.

Through his at­tor­ney Saira Lakhan, Ram­bar­ran sued for breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty aris­ing out of the de­fen­dants' pub­li­ca­tion of an ar­ti­cle in the Sun­shine news­pa­per on De­cem­ber 16, 2016, giv­ing de­tails on his di­vorce pro­ceed­ings. Ram­bar­ran claimed the ar­ti­cle con­tained pri­vate in­for­ma­tion and it caused him em­bar­rass­ment, dis­tress and sub­ject­ed him to pub­lic ridicule.

His claim was based on a breach of Sec­tion 22(2) of the Mat­ri­mo­ni­al Pro­ceed­ings and Prop­er­ty Act, Chap 45:51 (MM­PA) where pro­ceed­ings are held "in cam­era". In as­sess­ing the dam­ages, Alexan­der said the ar­ti­cle would have di­min­ished his pub­lic im­age, gen­er­at­ed pub­lic scruti­ny and caused spec­u­la­tion and in­dig­ni­ty to Ram­bar­ran, giv­en his promi­nent pub­lic stature.

"Al­so ac­cept­ed were that the ac­tions of the Sun­shine News­pa­per was a fla­grant dis­re­gard for the law, as it vi­o­lat­ed with im­puni­ty Sec­tions 22 (2) and (3) of the MM­PA. It might al­so have un­wit­ting­ly ex­posed him to be the tar­get of crim­i­nal minds as Jwala's fi­nan­cial af­fairs were clear­ly set out."

Alexan­der said the fact that he was a man of promi­nence in so­ci­ety proved to be a failed ex­cuse for ex­pos­ing Ram­bar­ran to the tor­tious acts of breach of con­fi­den­tial­ly and un­law­ful in­tru­sion in­to his pri­va­cy.

She said the court must ac­cept that a mon­e­tary award could nev­er ef­fec­tive­ly com­pen­sate Ram­bar­ran. Alexan­der said the news­pa­per did not demon­strate any sen­si­tiv­i­ty in the pub­li­ca­tion of the "near whole­sale re­port­ing" of the con­tents of Ram­bar­ran's di­vorce pe­ti­tion. The de­fen­dants were or­dered to pay gen­er­al dam­ages in the sum $150,000 with in­ter­est and $18,836.23 in costs.

A stay of ex­e­cu­tion of 28 days was grant­ed. The de­fen­dants were rep­re­sent­ed by Naren­dra Latch­man.