Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A com­plaint seek­ing to sus­pend or re­voke car­di­ol­o­gist Dr Con­rad Mur­ray’s tem­po­rary med­ical li­cence be­cause of his manslaugh­ter con­vic­tion in con­nec­tion with the death of US pop su­per­star Michael Jack­son has been dis­missed.

Ear­li­er this week, a tri­bunal ap­point­ed by the Med­ical Board of T&T (MBTT), chaired by at­tor­ney Shankar Bidaisee, de­liv­ered its de­ci­sion, al­low­ing Mur­ray to con­tin­ue prac­tis­ing lo­cal­ly.

The de­ci­sion was not based on a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the com­plaint’s mer­its. In­stead, the tri­bunal ruled that it could not pro­ceed af­ter its for­mer chair and cur­rent MBTT sec­re­tary, Dr Ian Ram­nar­ine, re­cused him­self over an im­prop­er ap­proach to a wit­ness.

Bidaisee, who wrote the de­ci­sion, said: “The rul­ing does not de­ter­mine the mer­its of the com­plaint nor ex­on­er­ate the Re­spon­dent (Dr Mur­ray) of the sub­stan­tive com­plaint.”

“This de­ci­sion un­der­scores the fun­da­men­tal re­quire­ment that dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings must be con­duct­ed fair­ly and im­par­tial­ly, in a man­ner that main­tains pub­lic con­fi­dence in its process­es,” he added.

On June 25, 2009, Jack­son, 50, died at his Los An­ge­les home from car­diac ar­rest caused by an over­dose of propo­fol and ben­zo­di­azepines. The med­ica­tion had been ad­min­is­tered by Grena­da-born Mur­ray to help Jack­son sleep.

Mur­ray was charged with in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter and con­vict­ed by a Cal­i­for­nia ju­ry in No­vem­ber 2011. Al­though he was sen­tenced to four years in prison, he was re­leased af­ter serv­ing just un­der half of his sen­tence, part­ly be­cause of prison over­crowd­ing and good be­hav­iour.

In May 2023, Mur­ray opened DCM Med­ical In­sti­tute in El So­cor­ro.

The dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against Mur­ray arose from a com­plaint brought by the board un­der Sec­tion 24 of the Med­ical Board Act in June 2018.

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, the board may, af­ter an in­quiry, cen­sure, rep­ri­mand, sus­pend or re­voke a prac­ti­tion­er’s tem­po­rary li­cence if the prac­ti­tion­er is con­vict­ed of a crime or found to have en­gaged in in­fa­mous or dis­grace­ful pro­fes­sion­al con­duct in a for­eign ju­ris­dic­tion.

When the tri­bunal hear­ing be­gan in April, Mur­ray’s lawyer, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, raised con­cerns about de­lays in bring­ing the com­plaint and con­duct­ing the dis­ci­pli­nary process.

Dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, Tak­lals­ingh got for­mer MBTT sec­re­tary Dr Pe­ter Bag­gan to ad­mit that Dr Ram­nar­ine, a car­dio­tho­racic sur­geon, ap­proached him to pro­vide a wit­ness state­ment.

Tak­lals­ingh im­me­di­ate­ly called for the pro­ceed­ings to be paused so the tri­bunal could con­sid­er the im­pli­ca­tions of the ad­mis­sion.

Af­ter the hear­ing was ad­journed, Ram­nar­ine ad­mit­ted he had made the ap­proach be­cause he felt Dr Bag­gan’s ev­i­dence would be use­ful.

Al­though Dr Ram­nar­ine even­tu­al­ly agreed to re­cuse him­self, the re­main­ing mem­bers had to con­sid­er whether the case could pro­ceed in light of what had oc­curred.

In his rul­ing, Bidaisee found that a fair-mind­ed and in­formed ob­serv­er would con­clude that Dr Ram­nar­ine was bi­ased.

“The tri­bunal finds that this con­duct went be­yond an or­di­nary ad­min­is­tra­tive in­ter­ac­tion,” Bidaisee said.

“This con­cern is height­ened by the sig­nif­i­cance of Dr Bag­gan’s ev­i­dence, his knowl­edge of the rel­e­vant records and the im­por­tance of his cred­i­bil­i­ty to the Com­plainant’s case,” he added.

Bidaisee and the oth­er mem­bers al­so found they could not con­tin­ue to pre­side over the case in Ram­nar­ine’s ab­sence.

Dr Mur­ray was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Kristy Mo­han.