DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing a group of 54 Venezue­lan mi­grants and the State en­gaed in tense sub­mis­sions yes­ter­day over a stay of a judge’s de­ci­sion to or­der their con­di­tion­al re­lease pend­ing the out­come of their law­suit over their pro­posed de­por­ta­tion.

Ap­pel­late Judge Prakash Moo­sai presided over the hear­ing on the stay and a rul­ing on the mat­ter is ex­pect­ed to be hand­ed down to­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that hours af­ter High Court Judge Ricky Rahim grant­ed the in­ter­im re­lief sought by the group on Tues­day af­ter­noon, State at­tor­neys filed an ur­gent ap­peal and an ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay of Jus­tice Rahim’s or­ders so they would not take ef­fect pend­ing the out­come of an ap­peal over them (the or­ders).

Sources said that the le­gal chal­lenge came af­ter im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials placed al­most half of the group on su­per­vi­sion or­ders and re­leased them in ac­cor­dance with Jus­tice Rahim’s de­ci­sion.

The re­main­ing mem­bers of the group re­mained in de­ten­tion yes­ter­day.

In the court fil­ings re­lat­ed to the ap­peal, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, at­tor­neys for the State raised eight grounds un­der which they sug­gest­ed Jus­tice Rahim made er­rors in de­ter­min­ing the group’s ap­pli­ca­tion for in­ter­im re­lief.

They claimed that hav­ing found the de­por­ta­tion or­ders against the group is­sued by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds were valid, Jus­tice Rahim should not have stopped the ex­e­cu­tion of the de­por­ta­tion or­ders pend­ing the even­tu­al out­come of their sub­stan­tive case.

They al­so con­tend­ed that Jus­tice Rahim made in­cor­rect find­ings con­cern­ing the abil­i­ty of the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer to re­lease de­tainees on su­per­vi­sion or­ders af­ter they were is­sued de­por­ta­tion or­ders.

“The find­ings and or­ders of the Learned Judge were so un­rea­son­able and/or per­verse and/or was so fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong and/or con­trary to law that no court act­ing ju­di­cial­ly and prop­er­ly in­struct­ed as to the rel­e­vant law and act­ing in a fair, ra­tio­nal, and pro­por­tion­ate man­ner could have made such find­ings and/or or­ders,” they said.

Through the ap­peal, the State is ask­ing the Court of Ap­peal to re­verse the in­ter­im re­lief as well as Jus­tice Rahim’s de­ci­sion to al­low them to pur­sue one as­pect of their sub­stan­tive case.

The mi­grants were among a large group of fel­low na­tion­als who were de­tained for im­mi­gra­tion of­fences at a night­club in St James on Ju­ly 8.

How the case un­fold­ed

Two weeks ago, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held a claim from six of the de­tainees in which they con­tend­ed that they were un­law­ful­ly held at the lo­ca­tion, which was of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed as a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty for the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic but not as an im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion sta­tion.

Two days lat­er, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad con­sid­ered a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion from an­oth­er of the de­tainees.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did not or­der his re­lease as his col­league did with the six oth­ers as the case came up for hear­ing af­ter Hinds is­sued the sug­gest­ed de­c­la­ra­tion re­gard­ing the lo­ca­tion.

In their ap­pli­ca­tion for ju­di­cial re­view, the group was main­ly chal­leng­ing the fail­ure of Hinds to place them on su­per­vi­sion or­ders so that they could com­plete their asy­lum seek­er/refugee ap­pli­ca­tions with the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR).

In de­cid­ing that the group should be grant­ed leave to pur­sue its sub­stan­tive case, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer first con­sid­ers whether de­tainees should be re­leased on su­per­vi­sion or­ders pend­ing de­por­ta­tion.

He not­ed that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who is re­spon­si­ble for sign­ing off on de­por­ta­tions, has the dis­cre­tion to ve­to such su­per­vi­sion or­ders.

Jus­tice Rahim al­so re­ject­ed the de­tainees’ claims over the ef­fect of the de­layed des­ig­na­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty on their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Rahim did rule that they had raised a valid chal­lenge over the fail­ure of both par­ties to con­sid­er the su­per­vi­sion or­ders af­ter de­por­ta­tion could not be quick­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed af­ter their ini­tial ar­rest.

In de­cid­ing on whether to grant an in­junc­tion or­der­ing their con­di­tion­al re­lease pend­ing the out­come of their UN­HCR ap­pli­ca­tions, Jus­tice Rahim sug­gest­ed that it (the in­junc­tion) should in­stead be re­lat­ed to the out­come of the sub­stan­tive case.

He ruled that the bal­ance of jus­tice re­quired the grant­i­ng of the in­ter­im or­der as he ref­er­enced ev­i­dence of the de­plorable con­di­tions at the fa­cil­i­ty and al­le­ga­tions of abuse to­wards de­tainees.

“The ev­i­dence in this case, should it be true, demon­strates noth­ing short of in­hu­mane treat­ment to­wards some mem­bers of the group, and their cir­cum­stances of de­ten­tion fall far short of what is to be ex­pect­ed to say the least,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

“Not on­ly is it like­ly to be harm­ful to the ap­pli­cants but such ac­tions may re­flect ad­verse­ly on the rep­u­ta­tion of the na­tion on the in­ter­na­tion­al front,” he added.

The case, which was deemed ur­gent, was trans­ferred to Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams.

The mi­grants were rep­re­sent­ed by El­ton Prescott, SC, Criston J Williams, Blaine So­bri­an and Shiv­anand Mo­han.

Gre­go­ry Delzin, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Shali­ni Singh, Vin­cent Jar­dine, and Avion Ro­main rep­re­sent­ed the State.