Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Al­most two decades af­ter they were beat­en by prison and po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a ri­ot at the Gold­en Grove State Prison in Arou­ca, a group of for­mer and cur­rent in­mates are fi­nal­ly set to re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil ruled that two out of three Ap­peal Court Judges got it wrong when they weighed in on the group’s class ac­tion law­suit in 2021.

In the ap­peal, the Privy Coun­cil had to con­sid­er whether the lo­cal ap­pel­late court had the pow­er to in­ter­fere with an agree­ment be­tween the in­mates for their in­di­vid­ual as­sault and bat­tery cas­es to be de­fined by the out­comes of test cas­es from three of them.

La­dy In­grid Sim­ler, who wrote the judg­ment, not­ed that the is­sue was not raised by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al when it filed an ap­peal af­ter a judge par­tial­ly up­held their law­suit. She al­so not­ed that the AG’s Of­fice pro­vid­ed gener­ic de­fences to all the claims.

Not­ing the AG’s Of­fice had con­sent­ed to the case pro­ceed­ings the way it did, La­dy Sim­ler ruled that the Ap­peal Court did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to in­ter­vene.

La­dy Sim­ler found that even if the Ap­peal Court had the ju­ris­dic­tion to con­sid­er the is­sue, there was no le­gal ba­sis to set it aside.

“This was a “win one win all” agree­ment that was ei­ther valid as a whole or not. It was not open to the Court of Ap­peal to rewrite it in favour of one side,” La­dy Sim­ler said.

She said that the two judges failed to con­sid­er that their de­ci­sion would mean that the in­mates, who ben­e­fit­ed from the test cas­es, would now have to pur­sue in­di­vid­ual claims al­most two decades af­ter the al­leged in­ci­dent.

The law­suit stemmed from an in­ci­dent at the prison on No­vem­ber 11, 2006.

A group of 54 in­mates filed in­di­vid­ual law­suits as they claimed that they were wrong­ly beat­en by prison and po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing the ri­ot.

While the case was at a pre­lim­i­nary stage, it was agreed that An­to­nio Sobers’ case would af­fect in­jured in­mates, who re­ceived med­ical treat­ment at a hos­pi­tal, and Gabriel Joseph’s case would af­fect in­jured in­mates who were treat­ed at the prison’s in­fir­mary. The in­mates, who claimed that they were in­jured but were not tak­en for treat­ment, were to be rep­re­sent­ed by Clint Wil­son.

In 2012, for­mer High Court and Ap­peal Court Judge Ju­dith Jones up­held the cas­es brought by Sobers and Joseph.

Wil­son’s case was re­ject­ed as Jus­tice Jones found that he had not proven that he was in­jured in the in­ci­dent.

In the ini­tial ap­peal, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar and Vasheist Kokaram up­held their for­mer col­league’s find­ing in the case.

How­ev­er, Ra­jku­mar and Bereaux took is­sue with the in­mates pur­su­ing the class ac­tion law­suit in­stead of their case be­ing de­ter­mined in­di­vid­u­al­ly based on the cir­cum­stances unique to them.

Jus­tice Kokaram dis­sent­ed.

The fi­nal out­come of the case means that Sobers, Joseph, and 18 in­mates, whose cas­es were de­pen­dent on theirs, would now re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion.

The in­mates were rep­re­sent­ed by Tom Richards, KC, and Ger­ald Ramdeen. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Rowan Pen­ning­ton-Ben­ton, and Kather­ine Bai­ley.