Dear Editor,
The criminal case against the Chief Justice in Trinidad and Tobago is turning out to be an embarrassment against the government and an abuse of legal process. Last year, the Privy Council in London ruled that the Chief Justice in Trinidad was not above the law and could be prosecuted. The ruling was unprecedented because no Chief Justice in the Commonwealth or in any part of the world was ever prosecuted.
The T&T government had instituted criminal proceedings against Chief Justice Sat Sharma for attempting to pervert the rule of law in a criminal matter involving then Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday who was charged for failure to declare his London bank accounts to the Integrity Commission. Panday’s criminal matter was before Chief Magistrate Sherman McNichols who claimed that Sharma tried to influence him to find Panday not guilty. Sharma was charged with attempting to pervert the court of justice. Sharma denied the charge and counter-claimed that it was the Chief Magistrate who came to him and sought his advice on the Panday matter. Sharma claimed that the Chief Magistrate told him that the case against Panday was weak and that he was leaning against a conviction. The Chief Magistrate subsequently found Panday guilty and imposed the maximum sentence of two years for each of three charges. Panday was also fined TT$1.8 million. Panday’s appeal of his conviction was heard in January; a decision is expected soon.
Before Sharma could be served with the criminal summons, he got the appeal court to stay the criminal proceedings but the state used a variety of means in an attempt to serve Sharma with the criminal complaint. The prosecution defied the stay order proceedings and attempted to arrest Sharma. A higher court reversed the stay order but Sharma appealed to the Privy Council which ruled that Sharma could be served with a criminal summons. Sharma turned himself in to the police right after the Privy Council ruling. Criminal charges were filed and Sharma was fingerprinted and released on bail. But when the matter came up for trial on Monday, the government withdrew the case. Over the last two weeks, Chief Magistrate McNichols used various legal means to avoid cross examination of his written testimony against Sharma. Finally, he told the prosecution he did not want to testify. Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who was also scheduled to testify later in the week, indicated he did not want to be cross-examined by Sharma’s defence lawyers. The government’s case against Sharma began to crumble. Finally, the state withdrew the criminal charg-es against the Chief Justice after spending millions of dollars.
Having failed to oust the Chief Justice through criminal proceedings, the government has announced that it will seek Sharma’s ouster through impeachment proceedings involving the Panday matter. The Prime Minister has another impeachment proceedings pending against Sharma from April 2005. That impeachment case arose out of a charge by the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecution that Sharma tried to influence them to drop murder charges against eminent cardio vascular surgeon Vijay Naraynsingh. Sharma has successfully blocked that impeachment proceeding which will come up for a judicial hearing in April. The judge in the Naraynsingh case threw out the criminal charges saying they cannot be substantiated but ordered a trial against the doctor’s wife and another co-accused. A jury subsequently threw out the charges against the two after the prosecution rested their case. The DPP and the AG filed an appeal against the jury’s verdict saying they should have listened to the defence case before rendering a verdict. The appeal court threw out the appeal saying a jury’s verdict is not subject to an appeal.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
