A man from Point Fortin has been giv­en a life­line in his bid to sue the State over be­ing com­mit­ted to the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal de­spite not suf­fer­ing from any men­tal ill­ness. 

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment at the end of a hear­ing on Tues­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Mark Mo­hammed and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar up­held Reni­sion Jef­frey’s ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to dis­miss his case be­fore it went to tri­al.

Jef­frey was com­mit­ted to the men­tal health fa­cil­i­ty by Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar when he at­tend­ed a hear­ing of a case over the cus­tody of his child at the Point Fortin Mag­is­trates’ Court on Feb­ru­ary 17, 2020. 

Jef­frey was re­port­ed­ly ob­served “fid­get­ing non-stop” and clench­ing his hands to his fore­head, and Chankar in­voked the pro­vi­sions of the Men­tal Health Act to send him to the fa­cil­i­ty to be ob­served for 14 days.  

Jef­frey was hand­cuffed by po­lice of­fi­cers and im­me­di­ate­ly es­cort­ed from the court in the pres­ence of his child’s moth­er and mem­bers of the pub­lic. 

Jef­frey spent four days at the fa­cil­i­ty be­fore he was re­leased af­ter the hos­pi­tal’s psy­chi­atric unit found that he was not suf­fer­ing from any men­tal ill­ness and did not pose a threat to him­self or oth­ers.

Doc­tors al­so found that his be­hav­iour was pos­si­bly a re­sult of stress from the cus­tody dis­pute. 

In Jan­u­ary 2022, Jef­frey’s lawyers, Ted Roop­nar­ine and Mick­ey Din­di­al, filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim, al­leg­ing that his rights to lib­er­ty, due process, and pro­tec­tion from cru­el and un­usu­al treat­ment had been in­fringed. 

On June 23, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion to strike out his case be­fore the State re­spond­ed with its ev­i­dence, and a tri­al was con­duct­ed. 

She ruled that Jef­frey did not raise any spe­cial cir­cum­stances war­rant­i­ng con­sti­tu­tion­al re­lief and that he should have pur­sued a ju­di­cial re­view case chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the mag­is­trate’s de­ci­sion. 

In up­hold­ing Jef­frey’s pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal, the pan­el found that their col­league’s dis­missal of the case was pre­ma­ture, as it agreed with his lawyers over the con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns raised. 

They or­dered that the case be con­sid­ered by a dif­fer­ent High Court Judge and or­dered the State to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by him for the ap­peal. 

In a press re­lease is­sued on Wednes­day, Jef­frey’s lawyers claimed that he was ea­ger­ly await­ing the tri­al of his case as he was still trau­ma­tised by the “hu­mil­i­at­ing” ex­pe­ri­ence he en­dured. 

“He is grate­ful that some­one fi­nal­ly lis­tened...Mr Jef­frey will fi­nal­ly have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to present his claim in full, and the State will be re­quired to an­swer the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions raised,” they said.