Trinidad court suspends recent ruling against sedition law

(Trinidad Guardian) The Court of Ap­peal has agreed to sus­pend a re­cent judge­ment, which struck down as­pects of this coun­try’s colo­nial-age sedi­tion leg­is­la­tion.

De­liv­er­ing an oral de­ci­sion at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yesterday morn­ing, Ap­pel­late Judge Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon ruled that the sus­pen­sion was nec­es­sary to pro­tect two pend­ing mat­ters be­ing pros­e­cut­ed by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and to pre­vent a myr­i­ad of le­gal chal­lenges to oth­er ex­ist­ing laws.

Yorke-Soo Hon not­ed that if the judge­ment is suc­cess­ful­ly ap­pealed, the DPP’s Of­fice would not be able to re­lay the charges cur­rent­ly be­ing pros­e­cut­ed, as the leg­is­la­tion has a one year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for do­ing so.

Yorke-Soo Hon al­so ruled that the sus­pen­sion, which will last un­til the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the sub­stan­tive ap­peal in the case, would not prej­u­dice for­mer Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, who passed away be­fore the case was de­ter­mined by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad in Jan­u­ary.

Yorke-Soo Hon al­so stat­ed that Ma­haraj’s son Vi­jay, who was al­lowed to be sub­sti­tut­ed as the claimant in the case af­ter his fa­ther’s death, would al­so not be af­fect­ed as there was no ev­i­dence that he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

“The court had to bal­ance the im­pact it would have on both par­ties and the wider pub­lic,” Yorke-Soo Hon said.

As part of her de­ci­sion, Yorke-Soo Hon grant­ed the par­ties an ex­pe­dit­ed ap­peal, which is ex­pect­ed to be heard by a full ap­peal pan­el on April 29.

The sus­pen­sion of Seep­er­sad’s judge­ment means that the DPP’s Of­fice can con­tin­ue the pros­e­cu­tion of its sedi­tion cas­es in­clud­ing one against Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr.

The DPP’s Of­fice will al­so have to con­sid­er the case against Pub­lic Ser­vices’ As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, who suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied to Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle to be dis­charged while the de­ci­sion on the sus­pen­sion was still pend­ing.

Bakr’s lawyers made a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion af­ter Duke’s was suc­cess­ful, but the de­ci­sion was put on hold pend­ing the Ap­peal Court’s rul­ing.

In his judge­ment, Seep­er­sad ruled that the law could not be pro­tect­ed from ju­di­cial re­view un­der the con­sti­tu­tion­al sav­ings clause as it is vague, un­cer­tain and can lead to ar­bi­trary ap­pli­ca­tion.

He al­so ruled that the leg­is­la­tion is not com­pat­i­ble with a sov­er­eign de­mo­c­ra­t­ic state as it lim­its con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion and free­dom of the press.

In its ap­peal, the AG’s Of­fice has raised 29 grounds of ap­peal over al­leged er­rors made by Seep­er­sad in his analy­sis of the case.

Ma­haraj’s fam­i­ly is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, Ste­fan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan. The AG’s Of­fice is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, and Josephi­na Bap­tiste-Mo­hammed.