A group of cit­i­zens cur­rent­ly strand­ed in the Unit­ed States has sued the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, over its re­fusal to dis­close the cri­te­ria be­ing used to grant trav­el ex­emp­tions un­der on­go­ing COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions. 

In the law­suit, which was filed last week, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the group, which com­pris­es a cou­ple and their two chil­dren who are strand­ed in Hous­ton, Texas and an el­der­ly woman strand­ed in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, claimed the min­istry's re­fusal to dis­close the in­for­ma­tion was il­le­gal, ir­ra­tional, un­rea­son­able and ar­bi­trary. 

The ju­di­cial re­view law­suit was deemed ur­gent when it came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son last week and the par­ties were giv­en dead­lines for the fil­ing ev­i­dence on whether the group should be grant­ed leave to pur­sue the claim.

The law­suit is ex­pect­ed to come up for hear­ing on Thurs­day. 

In the court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the group's le­gal team is con­tend­ing their clients and hun­dreds of cit­i­zens strand­ed abroad de­serve to know the cri­te­ria to de­ter­mine whether or not they qual­i­fy and whether they had been dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. 

"Strand­ed per­sons who are be­ing de­nied en­try have no way of know­ing whether they meet the cri­te­ria, what as­pect of it they do not meet, how to make ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tions to se­cure en­try, whether they have been ar­bi­trar­i­ly by­passed in favour of oth­ers in breach of their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment un­der Sec­tion 4(d) of the Con­sti­tu­tion," they said. 

Minister of National Security, Stuart Young.

They claimed that by fail­ing to dis­close the in­for­ma­tion, the min­istry ef­fec­tive­ly in­su­lat­ed ex­emp­tions grant­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young from ju­di­cial re­view. 

"The ex­er­cise of such an im­por­tant pow­er and se­ri­ous dis­cre­tion in se­cret by the in­tend­ed de­fen­dant is anath­e­ma to the con­cept of the rule of law, equal­i­ty, and jus­tice," they said. 

Through the law­suit, the group is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions and an or­der com­pelling the dis­clo­sure. 

In the court fil­ings, the group's le­gal team sought to high­light the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of its mem­bers. 

In late Feb­ru­ary, a sev­en-month preg­nant Rae­hana Lorick and her first child left Trinidad for Cana­da so she could un­der­go an op­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, the Cana­di­an hos­pi­tal in­formed Lorick it could not per­form the pro­ce­dure due to its COVID-19 re­sponse fo­cus. 

Lorick made arrange­ments with a hos­pi­tal in Texas and flew there with her child and her hus­band joined them be­fore T&T closed its bor­ders in late March. Lorick un­der­went the pro­ce­dure and al­so had her sec­ond child dur­ing the pe­ri­od. How­ev­er, sev­er­al re­quests for ex­emp­tions to re­turn home re­ceived gener­ic re­spons­es. While abroad, Lorick was laid off from her job and her hus­band was placed on no-pay leave. 

The oth­er mem­ber of the group iden­ti­fied is 61-year-old Joanne Pan­tin, who left the coun­try in March to go to Mi­a­mi to help her daugh­ter take care of her grand­chil­dren while her son-in-law was re­cov­er­ing from an op­er­a­tion. The group claimed Pan­tin is un­der fi­nan­cial strain. 

The group's law­suit comes af­ter po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj brought a law­suit claim­ing the min­istry breached the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) by re­ject­ing his call for dis­clo­sure of the ex­emp­tion pol­i­cy. 

The group is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC while Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, is lead­ing the State's team.