An­na-Lisa Paul

Three weeks af­ter a High Court judge grant­ed the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions leave for a ju­di­cial re­view of the de­ci­sion by Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate Mar­cia Mur­ray to ac­quit for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day of fail­ing to de­clare a Lon­don bank ac­count to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the mat­ter was ad­journed to next year.

Ap­pear­ing be­fore Jus­tice James Aboud in the Port-of-Spain As­sizes yes­ter­day, Pan­day's at­tor­ney Rik­ki Har­nanan, in­struct­ed by Mick­ela Pan­day, said he in­tend­ed to file an ap­pli­ca­tion to set aside the leave on the grounds of de­lay and non-dis­clo­sure of the file.

Har­nanan said that was an at­tempt to "res­ur­rect" the 11-year-old mat­ter and ow­ing to the cir­cum­stances, the en­tire file ought to have been sub­mit­ted so that the judge could have full sight of it, dat­ing back from the start. Pan­day, who was ab­sent yes­ter­day, was ac­quit­ted of the charges by Mur­ray on June 26 in the Port-of-Spain First Court.

The ac­quit­tal came 11 years af­ter Pan­day was charged with fail­ing to de­clare the as­sets of a Lon­don-based bank ac­count to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for three con­sec­u­tive years. Pan­day was fac­ing three charges un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act of 1987, af­ter he failed to de­clare the as­sets of the ac­count amount­ing to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.6 mil­lion held at the Na­tion­al West­min­ster Bank at Wim­ble­don Hill Road, Lon­don, for the years end­ing 1997, 1998 and 1999, while he was prime min­is­ter.

In March 2006, Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicols found Pan­day guilty and sen­tenced him to two years in prison. Pan­day ap­pealed that de­ci­sion and the con­vic­tion was quashed and a re­tri­al or­dered. That or­der was up­held on ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil.

On June 26, 2012, Mur­ray ruled that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had failed to com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. Three months af­ter that de­ci­sion, the ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion was grant­ed when it came up for hear­ing be­fore Aboud on Sep­tem­ber 26.

Rep­re­sent­ing Mur­ray were Avory Sinanan, SC and Lar­ry Lal­la, in­struct­ed by Cherisse Nixon. Telling the court they had on­ly re­ceived in­struc­tions on Thurs­day, Sinanan said Mur­ray's le­gal team had been re­tained af­ter a re­quest from the Chief Mag­is­trate to en­sure the mag­is­tra­cy, of which Mur­ray was a part, was rep­re­sent­ed in the mat­ter.

As a re­sult, Sinanan said, they were on­ly able to "have a cur­so­ry look at the chal­lenge mount­ed by the DPP" and would like some time to ful­ly con­sid­er the file. Ap­pear­ing for the state, at­tor­ney Ian Ben­jamin agreed that be­fore the mat­ter was ad­ju­di­cat­ed on, the en­tire his­to­ry "ought to be con­tex­tu­al­ly in­tro­duced as to how and what we are chal­leng­ing."

Aboud lat­er grant­ed Pan­day's at­tor­neys per­mis­sion to file and serve the ap­pli­ca­tion to set aside the leave grant­ed on Sep­tem­ber 26. They must do so by No­vem­ber 9. At­tor­neys for Mur­ray and the state al­so have been or­dered to file and serve their writ­ten sub­mis­sions, along with au­thor­i­ties, in re­sponse to that ap­pli­ca­tion by No­vem­ber 26, with fur­ther sub­mis­sions to be com­plet­ed by all par­ties by No­vem­ber 30.

Ad­journ­ing the mat­ter to next Jan­u­ary 25 for fur­ther hear­ing, Aboud said the di­rec­tions for de­ter­mi­na­tion of the sub­stan­tive ap­pli­ca­tion would await the out­come of the in­tend­ed ap­pli­ca­tion by Pan­day's at­tor­neys.