A High Court judge has dis­missed an ap­pli­ca­tion brought by at­tor­ney CJ Williams, who sought to stop the State from us­ing blind­folds dur­ing at­tor­ney-client vis­its at the Teteron Bar­racks de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty.

The mat­ter was heard yes­ter­day af­ter­noon be­fore Jus­tice West­min James, who ruled that the use of a blind­fold while es­cort­ing at­tor­neys to the meet­ing area was not un­rea­son­able giv­en the se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns in­volved.

Williams rep­re­sents in­mate Earl Richards, one of the men charged with the 2014 mur­der of Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal. Richards is be­ing held at the De­fence Force-con­trolled com­pound un­der State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions. Williams ac­cused the State of breach­ing a Ju­ly 22 court or­der by fail­ing to fa­cil­i­tate a vis­it with­out re­stric­tions. He filed a con­tempt ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing en­force­ment of the or­der and sanc­tions against the State.

Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, ap­pear­ing for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, told the court the mea­sure was nec­es­sary to pre­vent the com­pro­mise of the high-se­cu­ri­ty com­pound. He stat­ed that at­tor­neys did not need to view the fa­cil­i­ty’s lay­out and ref­er­enced at­tempts by un­known in­di­vid­u­als to ob­tain footage us­ing sur­veil­lance drones.

Ram­lo­gan said a vir­tu­al meet­ing had al­ready been of­fered us­ing Mi­crosoft Teams, the same plat­form reg­u­lar­ly used by the Ju­di­cia­ry, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, and the Le­gal Aid Au­thor­i­ty. He said the method re­mained se­cure and ef­fec­tive.

Williams ob­ject­ed to any form of blind­fold, say­ing it was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, un­law­ful, and could cause un­nec­es­sary trau­ma. He said he was asked to wear a blind­fold on one oc­ca­sion and was lat­er told a bag would be placed over his head. He re­fused to com­ply.

Ram­lo­gan said cell­phones had been found in pris­on­ers’ pos­ses­sion, and the re­stric­tions were nec­es­sary to pro­tect na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty.

Jus­tice James ruled that the re­quest for a blind­fold while mov­ing through the site did not amount to a breach of rights and was not un­rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances.

At­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, ap­pear­ing for the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, said the fa­cil­i­ty re­mained open to in-per­son vis­its un­der ex­ist­ing pro­to­cols and added that vir­tu­al meet­ings could ad­dress some of the is­sues raised.

Speak­ing at his Port-of-Spain of­fice af­ter the vis­it last week, Williams said he would be writ­ing to Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion head Is­rael Khan, SC, and Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lynette See­baran-Suite about what he de­scribed as breach­es of at­tor­ney-client priv­i­lege at the site.

He said that be­fore be­ing al­lowed to see his client, he had to agree to sev­er­al con­di­tions, in­clud­ing a ban on elec­tron­ics and the use of pen and pa­per on­ly. How­ev­er, he said the de­mand to be blind­fold­ed on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty grounds crossed the line.

Williams, who said he suf­fers from claus­tro­pho­bia, re­luc­tant­ly agreed to wear the blind­fold but claimed the sit­u­a­tion wors­ened when he was told that five masked men in full tac­ti­cal gear would re­main in the room dur­ing the meet­ing.

“That’s not a le­gal vis­it. That’s an in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tic,” he said. “It’s a sad day in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der the guise of a State of Emer­gency,” he said.

Aaron Lewis in­struct­ed Williams for Richards. Ian Ben­jamin SC ap­peared for the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, while Jared Ja­groo ap­peared with Ram­lo­gan SC for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Williams said yes­ter­day that he dis­agreed with the judg­ment.

“The Ho­n­ourable Jus­tice West­min James, in his wis­dom, de­cid­ed that be­ing blind­fold­ed to ac­cess a client on a mil­i­tary site presents no dif­fi­cul­ty, giv­en the cir­cum­stances the coun­try faces at this time. Am I pleased with the judg­ment? The an­swer is no.”

He con­firmed, how­ev­er, that he would not be ap­peal­ing the court’s de­ci­sion.

“I’m in­struct­ing my le­gal firm that we shall not ap­peal this de­ci­sion, to en­sure we get in­struc­tions from our clients in the short­est pos­si­ble time frame.”