KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The first hear­ing of the Med­ical Board's tri­bunal in­to the al­leged racist con­duct of Philip­pine-based physi­cian Dr Avinash Sawh is on Ju­ly 2.
In a let­ter sent to Sawh and his at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, the Board's at­tor­ney, Ra­jiv Per­sad of Al­lum Cham­bers, in­di­cat­ed that the hear­ing would be vir­tu­al and re­quest­ed an email ad­dress for Sawh and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives to fa­cil­i­tate the hear­ing. The tri­bunal does not pro­pose to be­gin the hear­ing of the sub­stan­tive mat­ter on Ju­ly 2. How­ev­er, it will use the oc­ca­sion to ex­plain the pro­ce­dure and give di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of any pre­lim­i­nary is­sues for the tri­bunal’s con­sid­er­a­tion.

Per­sad said that when the process ends, de­pend­ing on how the tri­bunal rules on Sawh's pre­lim­i­nary ar­gu­ments, it might be­come nec­es­sary to set a date for an ev­i­den­tial hear­ing.
The charges against Sawh al­leges that while be­ing a mem­ber of the Med­ical Board, he par­tic­i­pat­ed in a con­ver­sa­tion that some­one record­ed and put in­to the pub­lic do­main. Those com­ments are ca­pa­ble of amount­ing to in­fa­mous and dis­grace­ful con­duct. It al­so al­leges that Sawh post­ed on so­cial me­dia, cer­tain tweets that are at­trib­uted to his name and which are ca­pa­ble of amount­ing to in­fa­mous and dis­grace­ful con­duct.
On March 3, Sawh and George wrote to the Board, dis­put­ing sev­er­al mat­ters of the probe. In re­sponse, Per­sad said the Board felt that set­ting up a tri­bunal was sen­si­ble as it would al­low Sawh to present his con­cerns about the al­le­ga­tions against him.
“At the tri­bunal, you or your rep­re­sen­ta­tive will be al­lowed to chal­lenge any ma­te­r­i­al, give ev­i­dence and make what­ev­er rep­re­sen­ta­tions you think nec­es­sary in or­der to as­sist the tri­bunal in their de­lib­er­a­tions. To­wards this end, Coun­sel has been in­struct­ed by the Coun­cil of the Med­ical Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go to as­sist in the prepa­ra­tion of and con­duct of an in­quiry pur­suant to Sec­tion 24 of the Med­ical Board Act, which the Coun­cil pro­pos­es to hold in re­la­tion to you.”
Per­sad said the Board a file to him. Based on its con­tents, it ap­pears that while be­ing a mem­ber of the Board, Sawh was in­volved in an au­dio record­ing be­tween him­self and a per­son that found it­self in the pub­lic do­main in cir­cum­stances where his con­duct vi­o­lat­ed Sec­tion 24 of the Med­ical Board Act. 
It prompt­ed com­plaints by peo­ple out­side of the Med­ical Board that he post­ed tweets that al­so vi­o­lat­ed Sec­tion 24 of the Med­ical Board Act.
Per­sad al­so pro­vid­ed copies of emails, let­ters, news­pa­per clip­pings and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al pre­sent­ed to the Board re­gard­ing Sawh's al­leged con­duct.
It in­clud­ed com­plaints from Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, the Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, the African Stu­dent Union, na­tion­al awardee Wen­dell Everse­ley, and reg­u­lar cit­i­zens who pre­sent­ed links and screen­shots of the al­leged racist tweets.