Derek Achong

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard says he plans to con­tin­ue the pros­e­cu­tion of the three re­main­ing cor­rup­tion cas­es re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Gas­pard made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing in­ter­view on i95.5 FM’s Morn­ing Show yes­ter­day, two days af­ter he dis­con­tin­ued the Pi­ar­co 3 cor­rup­tion case against for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, his wife Oma, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Car­los John and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh.

Gas­pard said: “I have made no de­ter­mi­na­tion ex­cept that we are pro­ceed­ing with the rest.”

Pressed on the is­sue, how­ev­er, Gas­pard ad­mit­ted his cur­rent po­si­tion may change based on evolv­ing cir­cum­stances.

“That is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that is al­ways open but what I am say­ing is in this time frame, the on­ly de­ter­mi­na­tion I have made with re­spect to the oth­er mat­ters is that we are con­tin­u­ing,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing the pro­tract­ed na­ture of the four Pi­ar­co cas­es, in­clud­ing Pi­ar­co Three case dis­con­tin­ued on Mon­day, Gas­pard ad­mit­ted his of­fice was par­tial­ly to blame.

“If in 2023 we are now seek­ing to pro­ceed with a mat­ter that oc­curred in 1998/1999, I would have to say that does not speak to an ef­fi­cient work­ing sys­tem and the DPP’s Of­fice is one of the ma­jor stake­hold­ers in the sys­tem. So, I un­der­stand that some blame for the pro­tract­ed de­lay in the pro­ceed­ing may fall at the feet of the Of­fice of the DPP,” he said.

How­ev­er, he de­clined to as­cribe any blame to oth­er stake­hold­ers in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

“I do not wish to ap­por­tion blame one way or the oth­er. Maybe every­body may have con­tributed in some way to the even­tu­al out­come, in­clud­ing all the in­ter­est­ed stake­hold­ers. Whose fault would that be? It is not for me to al­lo­cate that kind of blame,” he said.

He did ad­mit some de­lays were due to a myr­i­ad of le­gal chal­lenges that were pur­sued by the ac­cused.

“I am not blam­ing the sys­tem. I am try­ing to ex­plain how cer­tain things would have arisen and how cer­tain loop­holes might be ex­plored, some­times quite prop­er­ly, by per­sons de­fend­ing them­selves,” he said.

Deal­ing specif­i­cal­ly with his de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the Pi­ar­co Three case, Gas­pard said it was based on an as­sess­ment of the prob­a­bil­i­ty of se­cur­ing con­vic­tions and the pub­lic in­ter­est.

“The DPP’s Of­fice isn’t pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with con­vict­ing per­sons. The DPP’s Of­fice is con­cerned with bring­ing pros­e­cu­tions against per­sons where there is suf­fi­cient and com­pelling ev­i­dence. It is not a win-at-all-costs sit­u­a­tion and if you lose, some­thing is wrong with you,” Gas­pard said.

“Stop­ping a case some­times does not mean that the sys­tem failed. It could al­so mean that the sys­tem worked. Hence the rea­son you have the DPP’s Of­fice.”

Gas­pard al­so not­ed he had to con­sid­er the costs and re­sources as­so­ci­at­ed with pros­e­cut­ing the cas­es.

“There comes a time when a per­son sit­ting in my chair has to make the hard de­ci­sion to say enough is enough. These mat­ters at­tract some­times costs to cit­i­zens that may be pro­hib­i­tive, but it is the very cit­i­zens who want jus­tice to at­tend up­on those pur­vey­ors of white-col­lar crimes,” he said.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Gas­pard added.

Gas­pard de­clined to sug­gest a time frame for the re­main­ing cas­es to go to tri­al, as he not­ed his of­fice may have to re­spond to oth­er le­gal chal­lenges from the de­fen­dants.

He not­ed that while the Pi­ar­co One and Four cas­es were com­plet­ed with the ac­cused per­sons be­ing com­mit­ted to stand tri­al, the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries in the Pi­ar­co Two and Three had to restart due to the re­tire­ment of for­mer se­nior mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet.

He said there is al­so a pend­ing ap­peal be­fore the Court of Ap­peal over his of­fice’s abil­i­ty to by­pass the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry stage and file the in­dict­ments in the High Court.

Gas­pard al­so sought to ad­dress the acute and chron­ic staff short­ages in his of­fice.

“Any time you reach a stage where the num­ber of courts out­num­bers the num­ber of pros­e­cu­tors, that must be an area of con­cern,” Gas­pard said.

“It is ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing. I have said many years ago that if it con­tin­ues, the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will col­lapse,” he added, as he not­ed he raised the is­sue pre­vi­ous­ly in the pub­lic do­main and while ap­pear­ing be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment.

He said staff at his of­fice is ei­ther hired by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC), chaired by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, or on con­tract by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“I have no con­trol over the staff at my of­fice...I do not make any de­ci­sions,” he said.