Fran­cis Joseph

Pro­fes­sor John Uff, Chair­man of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) and the con­struc­tion sec­tor, has been blocked from pro­duc­ing the re­port, which he had promised to de­liv­er by De­cem­ber this year.

By a con­sent agree­ment be­tween lawyers for Ude­cott and the com­mis­sion, it was or­dered that Uff's re­port, even if it was com­plet­ed, could not be re­leased or pub­lished un­til a ju­di­cial re­view case was com­plet­ed. That may take years, and cost mil­lions of dol­lars if it goes all the way to the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don. The agree­ment stat­ed that coun­sel for the de­fen­dants (the com­mis­sion) gave an un­der­tak­ing that there will be no re­in­state­ment or re­sump­tion of the in­quiry by way of fur­ther hear­ings or re­cep­tion of ev­i­dence, prepa­ra­tion, pub­li­ca­tion or dis­sem­i­na­tion, of any re­port un­til the hear­ing of the ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion brought by the claimants, Ude­cott. Ude­cott had gone to the Port-of-Spain High Court seek­ing a re­view of the de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion to con­tin­ue hear­ings, al­though the in­quiry was not gazetted. The State com­pa­ny is al­so claim­ing bias against for­mer com­mis­sion­er, Is­rael Khan and present com­mis­sion­er, Ken­neth Sir­ju.

Last Fri­day, Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er grant­ed leave to Ude­cott to file for ju­di­cial re­view. She fixed yes­ter­day to hear ap­pli­ca­tions for in­ter­im re­lief. But when the lawyers turned up, they de­cid­ed to have dis­cus­sions, rather than go in­to court and make sub­mis­sions. Dean-Ar­mor­er stood the case down on three oc­ca­sions on the premise that an agree­ment could be reached with­out ar­gu­ments in court. At 11.30 am, An­drew God­dard, QC, lead at­tor­ney for Ude­cott in­di­cat­ed that both par­ties had reached a con­sent agree­ment. It was then agreed that the sub­stan­tive case will be heard be­tween Feb­ru­ary 8 and 12, 2010. Ap­pear­ing with God­dard were Frank Solomon, SC, and De­vesh Ma­haraj, Ian Roach and Ker­wyn Gar­cia rep­re­sent­ed the com­mis­sion, but at the full hear­ing, they would be led by Eng­lish QC Michael Beloff. Ude­cott filed the ju­di­cial re­view ac­tion against Uff, Sir­ju and Desmond Thorn­hill. Ude­cott is chal­leng­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the com­mis­sion on the ba­sis that is was not gazetted. Ude­cott con­tends that al­though the com­mis­sion start­ed pub­lic hear­ings on Jan­u­ary 12, it was not un­til Sep­tem­ber 11 that the com­mis­sion was pub­lished in an ex­tra­or­di­nary edi­tion of the Gazette. Ac­cord­ing to Ude­cott, this does not have retroac­tive ef­fect.

The State com­pa­ny is al­so claim­ing bias against Khan and Sir­ju. The Sen­ate passed the Val­i­da­tion Act on Thurs­day, to val­i­date the work of the sus­pend­ed com­mis­sion of en­quiry. That means all the ev­i­dence tak­en at the in­quiry in the last eight months, would be saved and used for a fi­nal re­port. Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Sep­tem­ber 11, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, John Je­re­mie, an­nounced that re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal, An­tho­ny Lucky, would con­duct an "ur­gent probe" on how the Gov­ern­ment failed to com­ply with the le­gal re­quire­ment to pub­lish in the Gazette, the hold­ing of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry. The Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that Lucky hand­ed in a six-page in­ter­im re­port to Je­re­mie on Sep­tem­ber 16, be­fore he flew out to Ham­burg, Ger­many, to sit with the oth­er judges of the In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal for the Law of the Sea.