Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The move by lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der to op­pose a move by the Ju­di­cia­ry to livestream his ap­peal in a defama­tion law­suit in­volv­ing Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day was not based on a de­sire to have the case de­ter­mined pri­vate­ly. 

The ap­peal was sched­uled to be heard by the Court of Ap­peal on Mon­day but was ad­journed to De­cem­ber 17 af­ter Alexan­der's lawyers took is­sue with it be­ing broad­cast to the pub­lic by the Ju­di­cia­ry. 

Con­tact­ed on Tues­day, a source close to the case claimed that Alexan­der was wrong­ly be­ing crit­i­cised for the move. 

Stat­ing that the ob­jec­tion be­fore the Ap­peal Court did not chal­lenge the prin­ci­ple of open jus­tice or pub­lic ac­cess to court pro­ceed­ings, the source said: "The pro­ceed­ings re­main open to mem­bers of the pub­lic and the me­dia, and jour­nal­ists re­main free to re­port on what takes place." 

The source claimed that Alexan­der's le­gal team took is­sue with the fact that the Ju­di­cia­ry did not is­sue a prac­tice di­rec­tion to gov­ern livestream­ing of Ap­peal Court hear­ings, which were an­nounced by Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh at the open­ing of the 2026/2027 Law Term, last month. 

"The ob­jec­tion rais­es the broad­er ques­tion of whether, if livestream­ing is to be­come a reg­u­lar fea­ture of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, clear rules should first gov­ern mat­ters such as no­tice to the par­ties, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­ject, the se­lec­tion of cas­es for broad­cast, and the sub­se­quent use of court footage," the source said. 

The source claimed that Alexan­der's lawyers al­so raised con­cerns over the court's abil­i­ty to con­trol footage of the hear­ings af­ter they are broad­cast. 

"Livestreamed pro­ceed­ings could po­ten­tial­ly be record­ed, edit­ed in­to short­er clips, com­bined with cap­tions or com­men­tary and re­dis­trib­uted across so­cial me­dia plat­forms," the source said. 

The ap­peal pan­el is ex­pect­ed to con­sid­er sub­mis­sions and rule on the ob­jec­tion when the case comes up for hear­ing in two months. 

In the ap­peal, Alexan­der, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), chal­lenged a 2023 rul­ing by Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, who or­dered him to pay Pan­day $850,000 in dam­ages for defama­tion. 

Pan­day had sued Alexan­der based on a live video post­ed on Alexan­der’s per­son­al Face­book page and an­oth­er page as­so­ci­at­ed with the PEP on Ju­ly 17, 2020.

In the video, Alexan­der com­ment­ed on Pan­day’s par­ty re­vers­ing its de­ci­sion to con­test the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad up­held Pan­day’s defama­tion claim, rul­ing that Alexan­der’s com­ments were defam­a­to­ry.

He said the court was of the “re­spect­ful view” that the state­ment was ma­li­cious and “de­signed to sen­sa­tion­alise an ob­vi­ous un­truth that was fab­ri­cat­ed for per­son­al po­lit­i­cal gain and to den­i­grate and dis­par­age the claimant.”

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad al­so found that Alexan­der’s state­ment did not qual­i­fy as re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism, as claimed.

“There was no source of the in­for­ma­tion that was giv­en in the video nor did it seem that there were any steps what­so­ev­er tak­en to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion,” he said.

Alexan­der was or­dered to pay $600,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages and $250,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages.

The court said its as­sess­ment took in­to ac­count Pan­day’s fam­i­ly name, which she in­her­it­ed from her fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, as well as her un­blem­ished per­son­al rep­u­ta­tion as an at­tor­ney and politi­cian.

Alexan­der was al­so or­dered to pay $97,750 in le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Pan­day was rep­re­sent­ed by Justin Phelps SC, Rik­ki A Har­nanan, Chase Pe­gus and Ele­na Da Sil­va.

Alexan­der was rep­re­sent­ed by Saira Lakhan, Kirk Ben­gochea, De­vi Ram­nar­ine, Ar­ron Daniel Smith and Aaron Morales.