An­na-Lisa Paul

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day em­barked on a sec­ond ap­pli­ca­tion yes­ter­day-this time to have his tri­al stayed on the ground that there was an abuse of process. The sec­ond ap­pli­ca­tion was made af­ter Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Mur­ray ruled against a no-case sub­mis­sion put for­ward on Tues­day by Pan­day's at­tor­ney, David Aaron­berg, QC. The de­ci­sion was de­liv­ered just af­ter the mat­ter re­sumed in the Port-of-Spain First Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day. Aaron­berg made the no-case ap­pli­ca­tion on the ba­sis that the pros­e­cu­tion had failed to prove its case. In her rul­ing yes­ter­day, Mur­ray said while it was the de­fen­dant's right to make such an ap­pli­ca­tion, she was of the view af­ter re­view­ing the ev­i­dence that: "There is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to call up­on the de­fen­dant to an­swer." As she gave her rul­ing, Aaron­berg ap­peared shocked and lat­er ques­tioned her about the rea­sons as to how she had ar­rived at the de­ci­sion. But Mur­ray de­clined to re­veal her rea­sons.

Fur­ther pressed to say why she had ruled against the no-case sub­mis­sion, Mur­ray said she was not oblig­ed to pro­vide any rea­sons. Her de­ci­sion was sup­port­ed by state pros­e­cu­tor Tim­o­thy Cas­sel, QC, who said, "It is un­de­sir­able for a mag­is­trate or judge to give their rea­sons." Pan­day is be­fore Mur­ray on re­tri­al for al­leged­ly fail­ing to de­clare a Lon­don bank ac­count, con­trary to the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. He is ac­cused of fail­ing to dis­close the ac­count at Na­tion­al West­min­ster Bank Plc, Wim­ble­don, Lon­don, to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for the years 1997 to 1999. In March 2006, Pan­day was ini­tial­ly found guilty and sen­tenced by Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc­Ni­cholls to serve two years in prison, the max­i­mum penal­ty un­der the law. Pan­day ap­pealed the de­ci­sion and the con­vic­tion was quashed by the Court of Ap­peal and a re­tri­al or­dered, which was up­held on ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil.

Like the ar­gu­ments put for­ward in his no-case sub­mis­sion, Aaron­berg yes­ter­day said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Pan­day was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and geared to­wards help­ing the op­po­si­tion par­ty at the time get in­to pow­er. Aaron­berg said Pan­day's right to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty with re­gard to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was com­pro­mised when de­tails of the case were leaked to the me­dia soon af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion start­ed. Aaron­berg said the court had the pow­er to stay the mat­ter on the ba­sis that the ac­cused had not been giv­en a fair tri­al, and that it would be un­fair to al­low the case to con­tin­ue, as it would of­fend the court's "sense of jus­tice and im­pro­pri­ety." Aaron­berg is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue his ar­gu­ments to have the mat­ter stayed when the case re­sumes to­day at 10 am.