Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

High Court Judge Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son has agreed to re­cuse her­self from a law­suit over the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to in­tro­duce the long-tout­ed T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA).

Hav­ing twice re­ject­ed calls from Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­ber and cus­toms of­fi­cer Ter­risa Dho­ray to re­cuse her­self from the case, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son con­ced­ed af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions dur­ing a hear­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing.

While Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son re­ject­ed Dho­ray’s al­le­ga­tions over her po­ten­tial bias due to her mar­riage, she not­ed that her de­ci­sion was based on the need to pre­serve pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry.

“I am not pre­pared to have the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice tram­pled on. I am not go­ing to be a par­ty to it to per­suade any­one that the court will be im­par­tial or un­bi­ased,” she said.

Her de­ci­sion on the is­sue means that the sub­stan­tive case now has to be re­as­signed to an­oth­er judge.

On Ju­ly 4, the Court of Ap­peal is sched­uled to hear an ap­peal over Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son’s de­ci­sion to refuse Dho­ray an in­junc­tion bar­ring the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the TTRA un­til the sub­stan­tive case is de­ter­mined.

In a state­ment to the par­ties last Fri­day, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son con­firmed all the links ini­tial­ly claimed by Dho­ray’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers.

How­ev­er, she re­peat­ed­ly main­tained that they (the links) had no bear­ing on her abil­i­ty to pre­side over the case im­par­tial­ly.

She said, “Mar­riage has not dimmed my abil­i­ty to ex­er­cise a high de­gree of agency in my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life.”

Deal­ing specif­i­cal­ly with the claim that her hus­band is Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s “close friend” and “golf­ing part­ner,” Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son ad­mit­ted that her hus­band reg­u­lar­ly played golf with a group of friends in­clud­ing Row­ley at the St An­drew’s Golf Club in Mar­aval.

“I am aware that Mr Pe­ter­son, SC, has no po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions or re­la­tion­ships. I am not aware of him lend­ing po­lit­i­cal sup­port to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), or any per­son or po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” she said.

She al­so ad­mit­ted that her hus­band rep­re­sent­ed Dr Row­ley in sev­er­al court mat­ters.

“I am aware that Mr Pe­ter­son ad­heres to the ‘cab-rank’ rule which pre­vents ad­vo­cate at­tor­neys-at-law from re­fus­ing work be­cause they dis­agree with the ac­tions or views of those seek­ing their ser­vices,” she said.

Ad­dress­ing her hus­band’s role as chair­man of the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty (LAAA) and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT), she not­ed he was ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent on the ad­vice of the Gov­ern­ment.

“I am aware that Mr Pe­ter­son’s ap­point­ments are based on his le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence and stand­ing and are not ‘po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ments’,” she said.

She al­so de­nied al­le­ga­tions that her hus­band dis­played bias in his TATT role by cau­tion­ing sev­er­al me­dia com­pa­nies over con­tro­ver­sial state­ments made by po­lit­i­cal fig­ures but not state­ments made by PM Row­ley.

Turn­ing to the size­able state briefs her hus­band re­ceived from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son said he was re­mu­ner­at­ed for the le­git­i­mate work he per­formed.

“I am aware that Mr Pe­ter­son’s le­gal coun­sel is sought by gov­ern­ments through­out the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean,” she said.

She ad­mit­ted that her hus­band owns two units in a town­house com­plex in To­ba­go where Row­ley re­port­ed­ly owns a unit.

“I am not aware of the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of the per­sons who own town­hous­es in that de­vel­op­ment,” she said.

She al­so claimed that she did not feel it nec­es­sary to dis­close is­sues sur­round­ing her hus­band when the case was first as­signed to her.

“This has no bear­ing on the set­tled le­gal prin­ci­ples that are re­quired in the pro­ceed­ings,” she said, as she re­ferred to a sep­a­rate case in which she agreed to re­cuse her­self but Ram­lo­gan re­quest­ed that she stay on.

In the sub­stan­tive law­suit, Dho­ray is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al va­lid­i­ty of the T&T Rev­enue Act 2021.

She con­tend­ed that cer­tain seg­ments of the leg­is­la­tion are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as they seek to in­ter­fere with the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment of pub­lic ser­vants cur­rent­ly as­signed to the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) and the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD).

The law­suit specif­i­cal­ly fo­cus­es on Sec­tion 18 of the leg­is­la­tion which was pro­claimed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on April 24.

The sec­tion gives pub­lic ser­vants three months to make a de­ci­sion on their fu­ture em­ploy­ment up­on the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the TTRA.

Af­fect­ed pub­lic ser­vants have the choice to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­sign from the Pub­lic Ser­vice, ac­cept a trans­fer to the TTRA, or be trans­ferred to an­oth­er of­fice in the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

Af­ter the procla­ma­tion, em­ploy­ees of both di­vi­sions were giv­en TTRA em­ploy­ee in­for­ma­tion pack­ages and were giv­en a time­line for the TTRA’s im­ple­men­ta­tion, which was sug­gest­ed to be­gin in Au­gust.

In a de­ci­sion de­liv­ered ear­li­er this month, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son dis­missed an in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion from Dho­ray.

“Af­ter weigh­ing the rel­a­tive risks in grant­i­ng or re­fus­ing the in­ter­im re­lief sought, I have con­clud­ed that the de­fen­dant should not be re­strained, even by in­ter­im re­lief, from ex­er­cis­ing its statu­to­ry pow­ers or do­ing its du­ty to­wards the pub­lic at large,” Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son said.

Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son ruled that Dho­ray had raised a valid case for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

“It is clear that in this case, the is­sues that arise are nei­ther friv­o­lous nor vex­a­tious,” she said.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son not­ed that Dho­ray’s chal­lenge over the va­lid­i­ty of the move was not so “firm­ly based” to jus­ti­fy the in­junc­tion.

“To grant in­ter­im re­lief in the cir­cum­stances pre­sent­ed by the par­ties is like­ly to do more harm than good since the de­fen­dant’s case ap­pears to be stronger than that of the claimant,” Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son said.

She al­so not­ed that Dho­ray’s lawyers failed to prove that she would suf­fer ir­re­me­di­a­ble harm with­out the in­junc­tion in place. 

PSA: It’s a vic­to­ry

Mean­while, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has praised Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son’s de­ci­sion to re­cuse her­self from the TTRA case.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the union hailed the de­ci­sion as a vic­to­ry for work­ers and the rule of law.

“The PSA wel­comes this his­toric de­ci­sion as a vic­to­ry for the rule of law and the con­sti­tu­tion of the land,” the union said.

“The judge an­nounced that this mat­ter will now be re­as­signed to an­oth­er judge and the PSA can on­ly hope that this is done quick­ly and with­out de­lay as the rights of thou­sands of work­ers hang in the bal­ance.”

The union al­so not­ed that it is look­ing for­ward to an ap­peal on Ju­ly 4, in which it is chal­leng­ing Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son’s de­ci­sion to refuse an in­junc­tion stop­ping the im­ple­men­ta­tion pend­ing the out­come of the sub­stan­tive case.

“We look for­ward to this im­por­tant hear­ing as we are of the firm be­lief that the TTRA is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and il­le­gal,” it said.

“It re­moves the pro­tec­tion that work­ers at the Board of In­land Rev­enue and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion cur­rent­ly en­joy and places them in the un­com­fort­able and op­pres­sive po­si­tion where­by they will be work­ing for an en­ti­ty that is un­der the po­lit­i­cal con­trol of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.”