Derek Achong

For­mer Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try (JCC) pres­i­dent Afra Ray­mond will know the fate of his defama­tion law­suit against the or­gan­i­sa­tion on March 24, next year. 

High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad re­served his de­ci­sion in the case af­ter com­plet­ing the tri­al at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain.

In the law­suit, Ray­mond, who held the post for five years, is claim­ing that the JCC de­famed him in a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment placed sev­er­al months af­ter he re­signed on No­vem­ber 6, 2015. 

In the ad­ver­tise­ment, the JCC sought to dis­tance it­self from a let­ter to the ed­i­tor, which Ray­mond wrote and sub­mit­ted for pub­li­ca­tion on Sep­tem­ber 27, 2015.  

The let­ter sought to analyse the low penal­ties as­cribed to per­sons who refuse to ap­pear be­fore Com­mis­sions of En­quiry (CoE). 

It al­leged­ly of­fend­ed Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) chair­man Noel Gar­cia, who claimed that he was wrong­ful­ly ac­cused of re­fus­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the CoE in­to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Las Al­turas Hous­ing Project in Mor­vant. 

The JCC is con­tend­ing that its ac­tions were war­rant­ed as Ray­mond breached its con­sti­tu­tion by pub­lish­ing the let­ter with­out get­ting ap­proval from the coun­cil. Ray­mond has de­nied any wrong­do­ing and claims that he had in­ferred ap­proval from the coun­cil to make the state­ments on the is­sue. Ray­mond is al­so claim­ing that the JCC had ini­tial­ly de­cid­ed to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for his let­ter be­fore it changed it mind on the is­sue.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, Ray­mond’s pre­de­ces­sor Win­ston Ri­ley gave ev­i­dence and was cross-ex­am­ined by Ray­mond’s at­tor­ney Justin Phelps.

Phelps quizzed Ri­ley over the fact that he (Ri­ley) con­tin­ued to hold the non-vot­ing post of past-pres­i­dent on the coun­cil, even af­ter Ray­mond re­signed. 

Ri­ley claimed that the coun­cil to amend its con­sti­tu­tion to make the post an elect­ed one. Ri­ley claimed that he was elect­ed af­ter the change. 

 “I have an ob­jec­tion against any­one who goes against the po­si­tion of coun­cil and then re­signs. I would nev­er do that,” Ri­ley said. 

Asked whether Ray­mond had been banned from JCC meet­ings, Ri­ley said: “It did not pro­hib­it him, He had to be elect­ed.” 

Al­though Ri­ley claimed he had di­rect ac­cess to Gar­cia, he de­nied hav­ing sight of a let­ter in which he (Gar­cia) said that he did not want an apol­o­gy from the JCC. 

Ri­ley al­so ad­mit­ted us­ing ex­ple­tives sev­er­al times dur­ing coun­cil meet­ings, in which Ray­mond’s now-con­tro­ver­sial let­ter was dis­cussed. 

Tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore Ri­ley was the JCC’s man­ag­er and sec­re­tary De­siree Lopez-Arthur, who took notes dur­ing meet­ings. 

Ques­tioned whether Ri­ley had said that if Ray­mond did not breach the con­sti­tu­tion, it should be amend­ed in the fu­ture,  Lopez-Arthur said yes. 

She al­so ad­mit­ted that Ri­ley stat­ed that Ray­mond was “bla­tant­ly dis­hon­est”. 

The JCC is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Les­ley-Ann Lucky-Sama­roo.