Derek Achong

Po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj will have to wait a short while be­fore he learns the fate of his fi­nal ap­peal over a judge's de­ci­sion to dis­miss his le­gal chal­lenge over the Gov­ern­ment's move to ex­tend the term of lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives by a year.

Five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil re­served their de­ci­sion in Ma­haraj's ap­peal af­ter hear­ing lengthy sub­mis­sions ear­li­er to­day.

While Pres­i­dent of the UK's Supreme Court Lord Robert Reed, who chaired the pan­el, ac­knowl­edged that the case had to be de­cid­ed ex­pe­di­tious­ly he not­ed that he and his col­leagues could not rush to im­me­di­ate­ly de­liv­er their judge­ment.

"We are acute­ly con­scious that this is a mat­ter that needs to be dealt with ex­pe­di­tion...We will de­liv­er our de­ci­sion as soon as we can," Lord Reed said.

In the ap­peal, Ma­haraj is con­tend­ing that High Court Judge Jacque­line Wil­son and the Court of Ap­peal got it wrong when they con­sec­u­tive­ly re­ject­ed the case be­tween No­vem­ber, last year, and Feb­ru­ary.

Ma­haraj's law­suit cen­tred around the ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Act, which was passed by Par­lia­ment with­out the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion, last year.

In his law­suit, Ma­haraj claimed that he be­came con­cerned af­ter Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi host­ed a press con­fer­ence and an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to pro­claim cer­tain sec­tions of the leg­is­la­tion.

The sec­tions of the leg­is­la­tion iden­ti­fied by Al-Rawi sought to in­crease the terms of coun­cil­lors from three years to four years.

It ef­fec­tive­ly caused the de­fer­ral of the elec­tion, which would be due be­tween De­cem­ber, last year, and March, this year, had the amend­ment not been pro­claimed.

Ma­haraj con­tend­ed that Al-Rawi mis­in­ter­pret­ed the ef­fect of the leg­is­la­tion when he an­nounced plans to ap­ply it to in­cum­bent coun­cil­lors and al­der­men as he claims that it did not have a retroac­tive ef­fect.

De­liv­er­ing a judge­ment in Feb­ru­ary, Jus­tice Prakash Moo­sai, who de­liv­ered the Court of Ap­peal's unan­i­mous judge­ment, stat­ed that the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to vote on­ly ap­plied to gen­er­al elec­tions and not lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions as con­tend­ed by Ma­haraj's le­gal team.

He al­so stat­ed that cit­i­zens did not have the right to vote in lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions with­in three months of the term of elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives end­ing, as such was gov­erned by the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act which was amend­ed by the leg­is­la­tion un­der chal­lenge in the case.

Ma­haraj was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram, and Vishaal Siewsaran. Thomas Roe, KC, and Rishi Dass rep­re­sent­ed the Cab­i­net and Al-Rawi.