OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is cel­e­brat­ing a le­gal vic­to­ry af­ter the Court of Ap­peal grant­ed leave for the bill of costs to be de­ter­mined against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in its 2015 elec­tion pe­ti­tion. 

The case be­gan nine years ago when the UNC filed pe­ti­tions in the High Court to chal­lenge the Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015, elec­tion re­sults in five con­stituen­cies: To­co/San­gre Grande, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do West, and Moru­ga/Table­land.

The pe­ti­tion filed by Dr She­vanand Gopeesingh, the de­feat­ed UNC can­di­date in San Fer­nan­do West, was se­lect­ed as a test case to de­cide the out­come of the oth­er pe­ti­tions.

A sixth pe­ti­tion, chal­leng­ing the re­sults in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, was thrown out by the ap­pel­late court. This was be­cause it was served to the suc­cess­ful PNM can­di­date, Max­ie Cuffie, af­ter the dead­line had passed.

The UNC ar­gued that the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) act­ed un­law­ful­ly when it ex­tend­ed vot­ing by one hour in Trinidad due to bad weath­er.

In 2017, the UNC lost the pe­ti­tion and ap­pealed the de­ci­sion. How­ev­er, a 43-page judg­ment by the Court of Ap­peal, de­liv­ered by Judges Gre­go­ry Smith, Mark Mo­hammed, and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, dis­missed the ap­peal. The Op­po­si­tion par­ty had hoped to over­turn the de­ci­sion of an­oth­er ap­peal pan­el.

The pan­el had sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion of High Court Judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mour­er to dis­miss the pe­ti­tions in Oc­to­ber 2016.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Chair­man and act­ing Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, spoke to Guardian Me­dia about the mat­ter yes­ter­day at the com­ple­tion of up­grades to a play­park at Awai Lands, Bel­mont.

He said, “Leave was grant­ed, and we placed on record be­fore the court that we would re­sist any fur­ther at­tempts to de­lay the mat­ter and that we want­ed the case to start to­day (Wednes­day). Af­ter six years since the court or­dered the re­cov­ery of costs in mat­ters brought by the UNC, the case is fi­nal­ly mov­ing for­ward.”

Young ex­plained that the fi­nal de­ci­sion on these cas­es hap­pened in 2017-2018, and af­ter the PNM won, they re­ceived or­ders for costs in their favour. The PNM has since filed to re­cov­er ex­pens­es from the court ac­tions.

Young added that this year, de­spite mul­ti­ple de­lays—in­clud­ing a court or­der in Ju­ly 2020 re­quir­ing the UNC to sub­mit any ob­jec­tions to the bills of cost—the case is still fac­ing many pro­ce­dur­al chal­lenges.

The UNC filed the pe­ti­tions af­ter the PNM won the elec­tion with a 23-18 mar­gin.

“To­day marks the long-await­ed hear­ing of the case be­fore a reg­is­trar of the High Court. I took part in the pro­ceed­ings this af­ter­noon as chair­man of the PNM, where we re­sist­ed fur­ther de­lays. Both the court and the at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the PNM and the EBC not­ed that the UNC had still not com­plied with the 2020 or­ders and had not sub­mit­ted their writ­ten ob­jec­tions,” said Young.

Se­nior Coun­sel Ravi Nan­ga rep­re­sent­ed the PNM, while the UNC was rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen and Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al. The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion was rep­re­sent­ed by Ravi Heffes Doon and Alana Bisses­sar.

In re­sponse, UNC’s at­tor­ney Ger­ard Ramdeen called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer hold­ing po­lit­i­cal of­fice was al­lowed to make a state­ment in court.

“The PNM hired se­nior coun­sel to han­dle the bill of costs, a job usu­al­ly done by the in­struct­ing at­tor­ney. What stood out was that the chair­man of the PNM at­tend­ed the hear­ing per­son­al­ly. Even though se­nior coun­sel rep­re­sent­ed the PNM, the chair­man asked and was al­lowed to speak to the court about the ef­forts to re­cov­er costs from the elec­tion pe­ti­tion,” he said.

Ramdeen added that he hoped this would not be­come a reg­u­lar prac­tice.

“I hope this doesn’t be­come a habit, where ju­di­cial of­fi­cers al­low peo­ple with po­lit­i­cal roles to speak in court while their lawyers rep­re­sent them. The ju­di­cia­ry should take note of this, in­ves­ti­gate it, and de­cide if this is a prac­tice they will al­low in the fu­ture,” he said.

The case will con­tin­ue on De­cem­ber 18.