JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende

@guardian.co.tt

The Ap­peal Court is seek­ing to bring clar­i­ty and set an es­tab­lished prece­dent in the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Bail Amend­ment Act that al­lows mur­der ac­cused to ap­ply for bail.

Dur­ing a bail hear­ing ap­peal yes­ter­day, ap­pel­late judges Gillian Lucky, Car­la Browne-An­toine, and Mi­ra Deen-Ar­mor­er told at­tor­neys in the four cas­es be­fore them that they de­cid­ed to have some­what of a class ac­tion mat­ter that will set a prece­dent.

Af­ter ex­ten­sive dis­cus­sion on the case and with the ap­proval of Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, Lucky said one pan­el of judges will hear all the cur­rent ap­peals now be­fore two sets of judges that are yet to start, in one amal­ga­mat­ed sit­ting. Lucky al­so in­vit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, and the Pub­lic De­fend­er’s Of­fice to be part of the mat­ter.

In Jan­u­ary, the Privy Coun­cil sided with the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion that it could hear ap­peals for those de­nied bail at the low­er courts. The de­ci­sion was de­liv­ered on Jan­u­ary 14 by Lords Reed, Lloyd-Jones, Ham­blen, Leg­gatt, and La­dy Sim­ler.

In June 2023, ap­pel­late judges Nolan Bereaux and Maria Wil­son agreed that the Court of Ap­peal did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear ap­peals over judges’ de­ci­sions not to grant bail to a mur­der ac­cused.

Then Ap­peal Court Judge Boodoos­ingh pro­vid­ed a dis­sent­ing judg­ment say­ing he and his Court of Ap­peal col­leagues had the ju­ris­dic­tion to en­ter­tain such ap­peals.

The right of the ac­cused to ap­peal their bail de­nial came af­ter the 1994 Bail Act was deemed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and paved the way for bail to be grant­ed to in­di­vid­u­als charged with mur­der.

The 1994 Act was amend­ed last year and has paved the way for a judge to grant bail to a mur­der ac­cused as long as they can show “ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances” to jus­ti­fy bail. The law al­so gave the ac­cused the right to ap­peal if de­nied.

Bail for mur­der ac­cuseds was al­lowed fol­low­ing the land­mark judg­ment in favour of for­mer in­mate Ak­ili Charles.

Charles’ law­suit was ini­tial­ly dis­missed by a High Court judge be­fore be­ing up­held by then chief jus­tice Ivor Archie and two of his Court of Ap­peal col­leagues in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

Af­ter the State ap­pealed, in Ju­ly that year, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil re­ject­ed all the grounds raised by the AG’s Of­fice.

Since then, there has been con­flict­ing sub­mis­sions with some at­tor­neys say­ing the need to prove ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances is too much, while oth­ers claim that the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) (Amend­ment) Act pro­vides an av­enue for bail to be grant­ed af­ter 180 days.

Lucky, who led yes­ter­day’s pan­el, said the ap­peal courts have been faced with ap­peals in grant­i­ng bail for mur­der ac­cused and want­ed the “cor­rect test” to be used when in­ter­pret­ing the leg­is­la­tion. Lucky ex­plained that judges “need to have a con­sis­tent ap­proach” in the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law re­gard­ing bail to mur­der ac­cused.

Lucky gave the par­ties in­volved un­til No­vem­ber 30 to make their sub­mis­sions, with a hear­ing date set for ear­ly next year.