An­na-Lisa Paul

The charges brought against Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion's (PSA) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Nixon Cal­len­der in the as­sault mat­ter in­volv­ing PSA mem­ber Ricky Ce­de­no will con­tin­ue.This is af­ter Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael ruled that the com­plaint had been filed in time.Pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain Third Court on Thurs­day, Raphael ruled on an ear­li­er ap­pli­ca­tion by Cal­len­dar's at­tor­ney John Heath, who lob­bied for the com­plaint to be dis­con­tin­ued, as it had not been filed with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time.

Ap­pear­ing on Oc­to­ber 10, Heath ar­gued that Ce­de­no's com­plaint had been filed on Feb­ru­ary 28.At the time, Heath quot­ed Sec­tion 33 of the Sum­ma­ry Courts Act, which said pro­ceed­ings should be in­sti­tut­ed with­in six months of the com­plaint.Cal­len­der is charged with as­sault­ing PSA mem­bers Joanne Sem­per-Ca­pri­et­ta, Alana Black­man-Mal­oney and Ce­de­no in May and Au­gust, 2011 .

Those three mat­ters are be­fore Raphael, while Cal­len­der has a sep­a­rate case be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, in which he is al­so charged with as­sault­ing PSA's first vice-pres­i­dent Rosan­na Robin­son in Au­gust 2011.State coun­sel George Bus­by ex­plained that from the date of the al­leged of­fence on Au­gust 26, the po­lice had up to Feb­ru­ary 27, 2012, to file the com­plaint, which they had done.

Quot­ing from the Sum­ma­ry Courts Act and the In­ter­pre­ta­tion Act yes­ter­day, Raphael said the charges had been laid with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time.She went on to ex­plain that al­though the stip­u­lat­ed pe­ri­od with­in which to file the com­plaint would have ex­pired on Feb­ru­ary 26, this was a Sun­day and the court would have been closed, hence the rea­son why the com­plaint was filed on the next avail­able date.

Af­ter her rul­ing, Raphael ad­journed the mat­ter to April 25.