Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son will pe­ti­tion the Court of Ap­peal on Ju­ly 1 for a stay of the on­go­ing Pi­ar­co II in­quiry.The date for the hear­ing was set by Court of Ap­peal judge Al­ice Yorke Soo-Hon dur­ing a cham­ber court hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

The pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to fraud charges aris­ing out of the $1.6 bil­lion Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project is be­fore Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court. The in­quiry which is near its con­clu­sion is ex­pect­ed to re­sume Fri­day.

The ac­cused in the Pi­ar­co In­quiry in­clude for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei-Tung; for­mer works min­is­ter Sadiq Baksh; Ty­rone Gopee and Ameer Edoo; for­mer client rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Min­istry of Works at the air­port project Pe­ter Cateau; for­mer Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty ex­ec­u­tive Am­rith Ma­haraj; for­mer Mar­itime Fi­nan­cial Group ex­ec­u­tive Fer­gu­son; and chair­man of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh.

Dur­ing last Fri­day's hear­ing, Es­pinet re­ject­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion from Fer­gu­son's at­tor­neys in which they re­quest­ed that the in­quiry be ad­journed for five months.At yes­ter­day's pro­ceed­ings, Soo-Hon al­so set the dates for the hear­ing of Fer­gu­son's ap­peal of Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er judg­ment in the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 case.The ap­peal would be heard by the Ap­peal Court be­tween Oc­to­ber 21 and 24.

In her 175-page judg­ment, which was de­liv­ered on April 5, Dean-Ar­mor­er ruled that the re­peal of the sec­tion of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Of­fences) Act in Sep­tem­ber, last year, was not un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.Dean-Ar­mor­er re­ject­ed all eight grounds that were raised by Fer­gu­son, busi­ness­man Ameer Edoo and three in­sur­ance com­pa­nies in their con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion law­suit.

Last week Mon­day, Edoo and the com­pa­nies ap­peared be­fore Dean-Ar­mor­er, seek­ing a sim­i­lar stay of the in­quiry. The in­sur­ance com­pa­nies are Mar­itime Life (Caribbean) Ltd, Mar­itime Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Co Ltd and Fi­deli­ty Fi­nance and Leas­ing Co Ltd.Af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions from their at­tor­neys and those rep­re­sent­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Dean-Ar­mor­er dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion.

Fer­gu­son is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by British Queen's Coun­sel Ed­ward Fitzger­ald. The DPP was rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Ben­jamin, while Ger­ard Ramdeen ap­peared for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The facts

Af­ter Sec­tion 34 was pro­claimed on Au­gust 31 last year, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 42 ap­pli­cants filed mo­tions to have their crim­i­nal cas­es dis­missed.The act sought to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries for se­ri­ous crim­i­nal mat­ters.It pro­vid­ed that if cas­es had not been start­ed with­in ten years of the date an of­fence had been com­mit­ted, the ac­cused could ap­ply to have the mat­ter dis­missed.

The three par­ties, along with sev­er­al of the oth­er ap­pli­cants un­der the leg­is­la­tion, who in­clud­ed busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, face fraud charges aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The oth­ers face un­re­lat­ed crim­i­nal charges. Al­though sim­i­lar le­gal chal­lenges were filed by the oth­er ap­pli­cants af­ter the re­peal last Sep­tem­ber, it was agreed dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing that the trio's law­suits would be used as a test case which would de­cide the fate of the oth­er ap­pli­cants.