by Derek Achong

Po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj has lost his ap­pli­ca­tion for an in­junc­tion, seek­ing to de­lay the ef­fects of leg­is­la­tion ex­tend­ing the term of lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives by a year.

De­liv­er­ing a judge­ment, a short while ago, Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son re­ject­ed Ma­haraj's ap­pli­ca­tion.

Through the ap­pli­ca­tion, Ma­haraj was seek­ing an or­der re­strain­ing in­cum­bent lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from hold­ing of­fice past De­cem­ber 3, when their term would have end­ed if the one-year ex­ten­sion was not ap­plied.

In the al­ter­na­tive, he was seek­ing an in­ter­im de­c­la­ra­tion that their po­si­tions are va­cant from the dead­line pend­ing the even­tu­al out­come of his sub­stan­tive case over the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Act, which was passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port, ear­ly this year.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions on Ma­haraj's be­half, on Tues­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan claimed that Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi mis­in­ter­pret­ed the ef­fect of the leg­is­la­tion when he an­nounced plans to ap­ply it to in­cum­bent coun­cil­lors and al­der­men, ear­li­er this month.

Ram­lo­gan ad­mit­ted that his client did not have is­sues with the pro­vi­sions of the leg­is­la­tion in­creas­ing the term of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from three years to four, but main­tained that it could on­ly ap­ply to rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed in the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

He claimed that if the leg­is­la­tion was in­tend­ed by Par­lia­ment to have the ef­fect claimed by Al-Rawi, it (Par­lia­ment) would have ex­press­ly said so.

"It is an abuse of pow­er be­cause it is be­ing done by the ex­ec­u­tive and not the leg­is­la­ture," Ram­lo­gan said.

He al­so claimed that the de­ci­sion af­fect­ed cit­i­zens' con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of po­lit­i­cal ex­pres­sion as it de­layed their abil­i­ty to vote for lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives by a year.

"What you are do­ing is dis­en­fran­chis­ing per­sons from cast­ing their vote. If we al­low it, where does one draw the line?" Ram­lo­gan said.

Ad­dress­ing claims that the in­junc­tion would crip­ple the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem and de­ny cit­i­zens ser­vices of­fered such as garbage col­lec­tion, Ram­lo­gan not­ed that Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my gave ev­i­dence in the case in which he ex­plained that the sys­tem con­tin­ued to op­er­ate be­fore pre­vi­ous elec­tions.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions on be­half of the Cab­i­net, Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes stat­ed that the in­junc­tion was un­nec­es­sary as Jus­tice Wil­son is sched­uled to hear and de­ter­mine Ma­haraj's sub­stan­tive case in Jan­u­ary, next year.

"What is the rush? Is it that some point needs to be made? Why so adamant?" Mendes asked.

He not­ed that if the in­junc­tion was grant­ed and the sub­stan­tive case was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed, it would mean that the rep­re­sen­ta­tives' ex­tend­ed term would be short­ened by two months.

"That is not spec­u­la­tion. That is what would hap­pen. It would have meant that the will of the leg­is­la­ture is thwart­ed by ju­di­cial or­der," Mendes said.

He claimed that cit­i­zens' would be de­prived of the ser­vices of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men, who he sug­gest­ed were cur­rent­ly work­ing on ad­dress­ing is­sues caused by flood­ing across the coun­try, last week­end.

He said that the State could not be com­pen­sat­ed by Ma­haraj for the lost work of rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

"You can­not mea­sure the ser­vices they would give over the next two months and the ir­repara­ble harm would have been caused," he said.

Mendes main­tained that the leg­is­la­tion did not have a ret­ro­spec­tive ef­fect as claimed but rather a prospec­tive ef­fect on ex­ist­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

"We do not say their case is friv­o­lous and vex­a­tious, but it is weak," he said.

In his law­suit, Ma­haraj is claim­ing that he be­came con­cerned af­ter Al-Rawi host­ed a press con­fer­ence and an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to pro­claim cer­tain sec­tions of the leg­is­la­tion.

The sec­tions of the leg­is­la­tion iden­ti­fied by Al-Rawi seek to in­crease the terms of coun­cil­lors from three years to four years. It would ef­fec­tive­ly cause the de­fer­ral of the elec­tion, which was due be­tween De­cem­ber, this year, and March, next year.

Through the law­suit, Ma­haraj is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the move and an or­der quash­ing it.

Ma­haraj was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram, and Vishaal Siewsaran. Rishi Dass is ap­pear­ing along­side Mendes for the State.