Derek Achong

The start of the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to wit­ness tam­per­ing charges faced by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has been put on hold pend­ing the out­come of a con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge over his con­tin­ued pros­e­cu­tion.

The in­quiry was sched­uled to kick off be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle on Mon­day, but when the case was called, Ram­lo­gan’s lawyer, Pamela El­der, SC, im­me­di­ate­ly men­tioned the law­suit.

While El­der did not di­vulge ex­ten­sive de­tails about the pend­ing le­gal chal­lenge, she did re­veal that it per­tains to al­leged breach­es of her­client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by po­lice of­fi­cers who in­ves­ti­gat­ed the case and State at­tor­neys cur­rent­ly pros­e­cut­ing it.

El­der stat­ed that the in­quiry would have to be post­poned un­til a High Court Judge de­ter­mines the con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge, as, if suc­cess­ful, the State may not be able to con­tin­ue to pros­e­cute Ram­lo­gan.

Re­spond­ing to the law­suit, British Queen’s Coun­sel Ed­ward Jenk­ins, who was re­tained by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to lead the pros­e­cu­tion team, said he was not op­posed to the de­fer­ral de­spite the tim­ing of the law­suit be­ing “re­gret­table.”

“The State would not want to prej­u­dice the rights of any de­fen­dant, es­pe­cial­ly Mr Ram­lo­gan... I have very lit­tle al­ter­na­tive but to con­cede,” Jenk­ins said.

He al­so ex­pressed the view that Ram­lo­gan’s pos­si­ble suc­cess in the law­suit would not be fa­tal to the State’s case as sug­gest­ed by El­der.

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle even­tu­al­ly agreed and ad­journed the case to Sep­tem­ber 19, when the par­ties are ex­pect­ed to re­port back on the sta­tus of the con­sti­tu­tion­al case.

Ram­lo­gan is ac­cused of ob­struct­ing jus­tice by us­ing threats and bribery to per­suade Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West to not give ev­i­dence in his (Ram­lo­gan) defama­tion case against then Op­po­si­tion Leader and cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

He is al­so ac­cused of mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by im­prop­er­ly en­deav­our­ing for West not to tes­ti­fy on Row­ley’s be­half.

The of­fences al­leged­ly oc­curred in Oc­to­ber 2014, while for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who is al­so a wit­ness in the case, was serv­ing as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

Short­ly af­ter for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions in Feb­ru­ary 2015, then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­vised the Pres­i­dent to re­voke Ram­lo­gan and Grif­fith’s ap­point­ments.

Ram­lo­gan was even­tu­al­ly charged with the of­fences in 2017.

West and at­tor­ney Vanes­sa Gopaul were sched­uled to tes­ti­fy dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing but were in­formed that they would be sum­moned when the con­sti­tu­tion­al case and, by ex­ten­sion, the fu­ture of the in­quiry, is de­ter­mined.

Ram­lo­gan and for­mer op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen face sep­a­rate charges over an al­leged le­gal fee kick­back scheme.

Those charges against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen arose out of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­most $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees which was paid to pri­vate le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers, who rep­re­sent­ed the State and State com­pa­nies in le­gal pro­ceed­ings dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015.

The law­suits dealt with cor­rup­tion that al­leged­ly oc­curred un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

Ram­lo­gan, Ramdeen and Ja­maica-born British Queen’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son were charged with con­spir­ing to­geth­er to re­ceive, con­ceal and trans­fer crim­i­nal prop­er­ty, name­ly the re­wards giv­en to Ram­lo­gan by Nel­son, for be­ing ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent the State in sev­er­al cas­es; of con­spir­ing to­geth­er to cor­rupt­ly give Ram­lo­gan a per­cent­age of the funds and of con­spir­ing to make Ram­lo­gan mis­be­have in pub­lic of­fice by re­ceiv­ing the funds.

Short­ly af­ter be­ing charged, Nel­son en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the DPP’s Of­fice in ex­change for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

In March 2020, High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip up­held the plea agree­ment and is­sued a to­tal of $2.25 mil­lion in fines to Nel­son for his role in the al­leged con­spir­a­cy.

Dur­ing a hear­ing of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen’s case in No­vem­ber last year, Ram­lo­gan’s le­gal team and pros­e­cu­tors said they were still locked in dis­cus­sions over whether the cor­rup­tion case should be filed in the High Court with­out a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry based on the pend­ing procla­ma­tion of leg­is­la­tion seek­ing to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries.

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle is ex­pect­ed to set the date for the start of the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to those charges dur­ing a hear­ing on Au­gust 22.

As­sis­tant DPP Tri­cia Hudlin-Coop­er is ap­pear­ing along­side Jenk­ins for the State while Rus­sell Warn­er is al­so rep­re­sent­ing Ram­lo­gan.