Derek Achong

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine is set to re­file her defama­tion law­suit against To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, af­ter it was au­to­mat­i­cal­ly struck out yes­ter­day.

The de­vel­op­ment in the case took place dur­ing a hear­ing be­fore High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in.

David­son-Ce­les­tine was or­dered to pay Au­gus­tine’s le­gal costs for de­fend­ing the law­suit, which did not reach the tri­al stage. Her abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue to pur­sue the case was raised by Au­gus­tine’s le­gal team dur­ing a case man­age­ment hear­ing in ear­ly Oc­to­ber.

Au­gus­tine’s lawyer, Ken Wright, in­di­cat­ed that David­son-Ce­les­tine’s le­gal team did not ap­ply to the court to host a case man­age­ment con­fer­ence in the case, af­ter they filed their de­fence by an ex­tend­ed dead­line.

Wright point­ed out that un­der the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules (CPR) 1998, which gov­erns how civ­il lit­i­ga­tion is man­aged, cas­es should be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly struck out if the cor­rect pro­ce­dure is not fol­lowed.

In the law­suit, David­son-Ce­les­tine was claim­ing that Au­gus­tine tar­nished her rep­u­ta­tion when he ac­cused her of cor­rup­tion in re­la­tion to a zip line project al­leged­ly un­der­tak­en by the THA in 2015.

Au­gus­tine made the com­ments while ad­dress­ing a Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Scar­bor­ough in the run-up to the THA elec­tions in Jan­u­ary 2021.

David­son-Ce­les­tine de­nied any wrong­do­ing, as she claimed the project had bare­ly be­gun when she left her role as THA tourism sec­re­tary to take up the post of T&T Am­bas­sador to Cos­ta Ri­ca in 2017.

The elec­tion even­tu­al­ly end­ed in a stale­mate with the PNM and PDP each se­cur­ing six dis­tricts.

The THA dis­tricts were sub­se­quent­ly in­creased from 12 to 15 be­fore an­oth­er elec­tion was held in De­cem­ber of that year.

The sec­ond elec­tion end­ed in a land­slide vic­to­ry for the PDP, which se­cured 14 of the dis­tricts.

The THA re­cent­ly filed a breach of con­tract law­suit against Orig­i­nal Canopy Tours En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed, seek­ing US$416,900 in com­pen­sa­tion over its al­leged fail­ure to com­ply with the terms of the agree­ment over the zip line project for the Main Ridge For­est Re­serve.

Ear­li­er this month, the THA ob­tained freez­ing or­ders from a High Court Judge and the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court against Richard Gra­ham and Dar­ren Hre­niuk, the di­rec­tors of the com­pa­ny, which is reg­is­tered in the British Vir­gin Is­lands.

The or­ders pre­vent the duo from dis­pos­ing of funds in their T&T and BVI bank ac­counts, which can be used to pay the com­pen­sa­tion if the THA is even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in its lit­i­ga­tion.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, David­son-Ce­les­tine claimed the out­come was not based on the “tact or skill” of Au­gus­tine’s le­gal team or an analy­sis of the mer­its of her case but rather be­cause she was forced to change her le­gal team short­ly af­ter it was filed.

She said the change was nec­es­sary as her for­mer at­tor­ney John Je­re­mie, SC, was re­tained by the THA to pur­sue the case against the com­pa­ny and its di­rec­tors.

“What I still await is the ev­i­dence, al­most two years lat­er, af­ter Far­ley pub­licly be­smirched my name with de­c­la­ra­tions of hav­ing ev­i­dence of cor­rup­tion in the zip line project in­volv­ing me,” she said, as she not­ed her new le­gal team was in­struct­ed to ur­gent­ly re­file the case.

“If Far­ley was telling the truth, I ex­pect he would have tak­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to present it in the court of law. It would be a per­fect plat­form for his voice,” she added.

Au­gus­tine was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Justin Phelps, while David­son-Ce­les­tine was rep­re­sent­ed by Kei­th Scot­land, Asha Watkins-Montserin and Keisha Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal.