Sto­ries by Derek Achong

Busi­ness­woman Shirlanne Sasha Singh has been or­dered to pay 30 per cent of the le­gal costs in­curred by the State in de­fend­ing her failed law­suit over de­lays in be­ing grant­ed an ex­emp­tion to re­turn to this coun­try, last year. 

Al­though High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­fused Singh leave to pur­sue her ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young, last De­cem­ber, she on­ly as­sessed the le­gal costs to be paid by her, as the un­suc­cess­ful par­ty, on Mon­day. 

In her or­der, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said that while Singh was seek­ing her own in­ter­ests in fil­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion for leave, she al­so raised is­sues of na­tion­al im­por­tance. 

She not­ed that while the min­istry’s lawyers chal­lenged Singh’s law­suit based on non-jus­ti­cia­bil­i­ty and unar­gua­bil­i­ty, on­ly the lat­ter was up­held.

She al­so stat­ed that Singh chose to file the claim with­out giv­ing the min­istry time to dis­cuss the case with her le­gal team and that the min­istry failed to pro­vide a mean­ing­ful re­sponse to her pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter. 

“The Claimant omit­ted to dis­close rel­e­vant cor­re­spon­dence, which would have made the unar­gua­bil­i­ty of her case clear from the on­set,” Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said. 

In the law­suit, Singh was seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that there had been an un­rea­son­able de­lay by Young in de­ter­min­ing her ap­pli­ca­tion to re-en­ter the coun­try un­der pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

In re­ject­ing her ap­pli­ca­tion for leave, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well not­ed that Singh failed to present ev­i­dence that she was dis­crim­i­nat­ed against com­pared to oth­er na­tion­als, who were left strand­ed abroad due to the clo­sure of the bor­ders and cor­re­spond­ing re-en­try ex­emp­tion process.

“I say that be­cause, for ex­am­ple, noth­ing has been said about what is the nor­mal length of wait time of oth­ers or that oth­ers have wrong­ly been giv­en pri­or­i­ty for grant of an ex­emp­tion be­fore the Ap­pli­cant in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances,” she said. 

Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well al­so not­ed that based on Singh’s re­quest to Young, she did not pro­vide any ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances to war­rant her be­ing pri­ori­tised in­clud­ing med­ical con­di­tions or fi­nan­cial hard­ship. 

Singh was rep­re­sent­ed by Naveen Maraj and Varun Dabideen, while Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Lau­ra Per­sad, Raphael Ajod­ha, Adana Hosang rep­re­sent­ed Young and the min­istry.