Derek Achong

The Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) has lost its ap­peal chal­leng­ing a law­suit in which UNC ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj was seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on its wire-tap­ping ac­tiv­i­ties.

De­liv­er­ing a 25-page judge­ment at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, three Ap­peal Court Judges ruled that High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad was cor­rect to re­ject an ap­pli­ca­tion from the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency to strike out Ma­haraj’s case at a pre­lim­i­nary stage.

In June 2017, Ma­haraj’s lawyers filed a ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions that the SSA act­ed un­law­ful­ly when it re­fused his re­quests un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA).

Un­der the re­quests, Ma­haraj was seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on the num­ber of in­ter­cep­tions con­duct­ed by the SSA with­out ju­di­cial war­rants be­tween 2015 and 2016, copies of its fi­nan­cial state­ments sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and de­tails on the in­ter­na­tion­al sem­i­nars and con­fer­ences that were at­tend­ed by SSA of­fi­cials.

In its ap­pli­ca­tion, the SSA con­tend­ed that the law­suit should be struck out as af­ter it was filed, a le­gal no­tice was is­sued ex­empt­ing it from FOIA re­quests.

It al­so con­tend­ed that Ma­haraj’s law­suit had pro­ce­dur­al de­fects un­der the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion in June, last year, Ram­per­sad dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion.

In the ap­peal, Ap­pel­late Judges Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine, Gre­go­ry Smith and An­dre Des Vi­gnes stat­ed that Ram­per­sad had made the right de­ci­sion.

Nar­ine, who wrote the judge­ment, said: “I am of the view that the pro­ce­dur­al er­rors in the fixed date claim form and af­fi­davit were of a na­ture which could be rec­ti­fied by the court. I am al­so of the view that it would not have been just for the court to strike out the re­spon­dent’s claim.”

Nar­ine al­so ruled that the SSA could not re­ly on the le­gal no­tice as it was pub­lished af­ter the case was filed and does not have retroac­tive ef­fect.

The Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion means that the sub­stan­tive case will now go back be­fore Ram­per­sad for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Ma­haraj was rep­re­sent­ed Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and Ger­ald Ramdeen, while Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, Tracey Vi­dale and Di­anne Kat­wa­roo rep­re­sent­ed the SSA.