A week after being found in contempt of court and fined $10,000, attorney Cherry Ann Rajkumar has filed an appeal claiming that the judge erred in law.
Rajkumar who filed the documents on Thursday submitted 11 grounds of appeal.
Last Thursday in the San Fernando Supreme Court, Justice Frank Seepersad found Rajkumar to be in contempt of court. He ordered her to pay the fine on or before June 30 or in default will serve two days simple imprisonment.
The contempt application was filed by attorneys representing Southern Medical Clinic.
The attorneys submitted that Rajkumar breached the court's interim injunction order by posting on her personal Facebook page on February 17 a link to a Newsday article and a video about her claims of radiation poisoning.
The video was also posted to the Facebook page of her husband Marvin Ramnarine with the caption “False advertising – radiation poisoning.”
In her appeal documents, Rajkumar is claiming among other things that the judge used the wrong procedure in coming to his decision.
She further claimed that she was deprived of her constitutional rights to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. Rajkumar also submitted that there was a real danger of bias that the judge would have found her guilty owing to the fact that he "followed the summary committal jurisdiction which obviated the need to hear evidence as with criminal contempt."
Rajkumar has been sued by Southern Medical Clinic, its chairman Rupert Indar (Senior) and director Romney Thomas for defamation following her claims of radiation poisoning on social media.
That matter has been fixed for trial before Seepersad on October 24 and 25.
The clinic, Indar and Thomas are being represented by Russell Martineau SC, instructed by Faarees Hosein, Roger-MarkKawalsingh-Kar and Melissa Sinanan.