Sat Ma­haraj

The Ma­ha Sab­ha is still await­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions' de­ci­sion in our ra­dio li­cence dis­crim­i­na­tion case af­ter more than ten years. The mat­ter start­ed be­fore Jus­tice Best who gave judg­ment on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2004, hold­ing that there had been un­equal treat­ment con­trary to sec­tion 4(b) and (d) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

On Feb­ru­ary 11, 2004 we wrote Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, en­clos­ing a copy of the judg­ment ask­ing that a li­cence be grant­ed by Feb­ru­ary 20, 2004. Fail­ing, we would "be forced to con­tin­ue our jour­ney for jus­tice, equal­i­ty and fair play." The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and In­for­ma­tion, Dr Lenny Saith, replied on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2004 say­ing that "The mat­ter is re­ceiv­ing at­ten­tion and fur­ther cor­re­spon­dence will be ad­dressed to you." None was. And we ap­pealed on Feb­ru­ary 26, 2004. The ap­peal was heard in Oc­to­ber 2004.

While dis­agree­ing with the judge's con­clu­sion that the min­istry's in­ac­tion in the case of the ap­pel­lants (com­pared to its ac­tion in the case of Citadel) amount­ed to a con­struc­tive re­fusal of a li­cence, they up­held his con­clu­sion that the Min­istry's con­duct amount­ed to a breach of Cen­tral Broad­cast­ing Sys­tems Lim­it­ed (CB­SL's) con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal treat­ment.

The mat­ter even­tu­al­ly reached the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don where the Board em­pha­sised that, al­though no one has an ab­solute right to es­tab­lish a broad­cast­ing sta­tion, the ef­fect of the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions be­fore it was that a li­cence could be re­fused on­ly on con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly jus­ti­fi­able grounds.

It was the Board's opin­ion, a sim­i­lar in­fringe­ment of CB­SL's right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion un­der sec­tion 4(i) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T. CB­SL's ap­pli­ca­tion for a li­cence was rec­om­mend­ed to the Min­is­ter by the Di­rec­tor of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Di­vi­sion as long ago as Oc­to­ber 2000. There was un­ex­plained and un­jus­ti­fied dis­crim­i­na­tion in favour of an­oth­er ap­pli­cant, Citadel.

The Board con­clud­ed that the ap­peal should be al­lowed. As in Ob­serv­er Pub­li­ca­tions Ltd v. Matthew, the Board con­sid­ered that the on­ly ap­pro­pri­ate or­der is a manda­to­ry or­der, in this case or­der­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to do all that was nec­es­sary to pro­cure and en­sure the is­sue forth­with to the ap­pel­lant, Cen­tral Broad­cast­ing Sys­tems Lim­it­ed (CB­SL), of an FM ra­dio broad­cast­ing li­cence, as ap­plied for on Sep­tem­ber 1, 2000. The At­tor­ney gen­er­al was or­dered to pay our costs in "the courts be­low and be­fore the Board."

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for­ward­ed our com­plaint to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pre­cau­tions for pos­si­ble ac­tion against two for­mer Cab­i­net mem­bers. This mat­ter is be­fore the DPP for about two years and our at­tor­ney had to again in­vite him:

"Re: Ma­ha Sab­ha Ra­dio Li­cence and re­fer­ral by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion,

I re­fer to the mat­ter at cap­tion and the sev­er­al items of cor­re­spon­dence on same ex­change be­tween our­selves.

As you would no doubt re­call pur­suant to a let­ter sent to you on be­half of the Ma­ha Sab­ha en­quir­ing as to the sta­tus of this mat­ter you in­di­cat­ed that you were in the process of seek­ing ad­vice on same and that the mat­ter was re­ceiv­ing your ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion.

You would al­so no doubt agree that a con­sid­er­able amount of time has elapsed since your last cor­re­spon­dence and de­spite your as­sur­ances that this mat­ter was re­ceiv­ing your ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion, my clients have heard noth­ing em­a­nat­ing from your of­fice as to whether any de­ci­sion has been tak­en in this mat­ter.

I do not think that you would dis­pute that the Ma­ha Sab­ha has a vest­ed in­ter­est in see­ing that this mat­ter be dealt with one way or the oth­er.In the view of my clients this episode epit­o­mis­es the ab­solute abuse of pow­er and my clients feel vin­di­cat­ed that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has seen it fit to re­fer this mat­ter to you for what­so­ev­er ac­tion you may deem ap­pro­pri­ate.

Whilst my clients were very op­ti­mistic that you would pro­ceed with dis­patch and alacrity in this mat­ter giv­en the egre­gious abuse of pow­er that is al­leged, they now feel dis­ap­point­ed and dis­heart­ened by your ap­par­ent lack of in­ter­est or ur­gency in pro­ceed­ing with this mat­ter.

Whilst my clients ful­ly un­der­stand that the de­ci­sion as to how to pro­ceed with this mat­ter is one sole­ly with­in your re­mit, my clients nev­er­the­less feel dis­ap­point­ed about this ap­par­ent lack of progress in this mat­ter. My clients feel for­ti­fied in this view giv­en the dis­patch and speed with which the of­fice has moved in the past in sim­i­lar high pro­file cas­es.

Even though my clients are aware that the process which has to be un­der­tak­en is one to which much def­er­ence is to paid, my clients feel that the de­lay in com­ing to a de­ci­sion in this mat­ter has now crossed the thresh­old in­to the realm of un­rea­son­able de­lay.The pro­vi­sions of the Ju­di­cial Re­view Act make it plain that a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty is not to de­lay un­du­ly in mak­ing a de­ci­sion in a mat­ter in which it has a du­ty to de­cide.

In these cir­cum­stances, my clients would in­deed be most grate­ful if you could please pro­vide us with some rea­son to ac­count for this un­rea­son­able de­lay in com­ing to a de­ci­sion in this mat­ter.I await your most ur­gent re­ply."

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha