Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The new Cab­i­net has been giv­en time to de­cide its po­si­tion on a law­suit brought by for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran seek­ing in­for­ma­tion rel­a­tive to his ter­mi­na­tion by the for­mer gov­ern­ment in 2015.

Af­ter he was fired by the then-Cab­i­net based on the ad­vice of for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, Ram­bar­ran sought the in­for­ma­tion un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA), which he claimed he need­ed to pur­sue a wrong­ful dis­missal case.

Al­though the dis­clo­sure re­quest was de­nied and a law­suit over the dis­clo­sure de­ci­sion was dis­missed, Ram­bar­ran still suc­ceed­ed in his wrong­ful dis­missal case in the High Court and the Court of Ap­peal.

De­spite his suc­cess in his sub­stan­tive case, Ram­bar­ran still ap­pealed the dis­missal of his FOIA case.

When the ap­peal came up for hear­ing be­fore Ap­pel­late Judges Prakash Moo­sai, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er, and Vasheist Kokaram, Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, who led the le­gal team for the Cab­i­net, re­quest­ed an ad­journ­ment to con­sult with the new Cab­i­net led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on whether the ap­peal should be pur­sued or con­ced­ed.

Ram­bar­ran’s lawyer, Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, chal­lenged the po­si­tion as he de­scribed the pro­tract­ed case as an “abom­i­na­tion”.

“Just imag­ine the for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, who is a world-class econ­o­mist, now has to be plant­i­ng bo­di and toma­toes. That is what he is do­ing now,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Jus­tice Dean-Ar­mor­er ques­tioned how the in­for­ma­tion would ben­e­fit Ram­bar­ran af­ter his suc­cess in his sub­stan­tive case.

Ram­lo­gan ex­plained that the out­come of his sub­stan­tive case is ir­rel­e­vant, as his client main­tains that he is en­ti­tled to ac­cess the in­for­ma­tion un­der the FOIA.

He said that if the court were to rule that Ram­bar­ran was not en­ti­tled based on his sep­a­rate case, it would set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent in terms of FOIA cas­es.

“It de­feats the pur­pose of what should be the ef­fi­ca­cy of the FOIA,” Ram­lo­gan said.

The ap­peal pan­el even­tu­al­ly ad­journed the case to June 23 for Mendes to pro­vide feed­back on the case.

If a de­ci­sion is not tak­en to con­cede the ap­peal, it will be heard by the pan­el on Oc­to­ber 28.

Ram­bar­ran was ap­point­ed Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor in Ju­ly 2012.

The de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate him came short­ly af­ter he an­nounced that T&T was in a re­ces­sion and af­ter he re­vealed the biggest for­eign ex­change users in the coun­try.

In his con­sti­tu­tion­al claim, he con­tend­ed that the gov­ern­ment un­law­ful­ly re­voked his ap­point­ment in breach of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

In 2022, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled that his ter­mi­na­tion was “se­ri­ous­ly flawed” and his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and to a fair hear­ing in ac­cor­dance with the prin­ci­ples of fun­da­men­tal jus­tice were breached.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that if there were con­cerns that Ram­bar­ran’s al­leged con­duct was in breach of as­pects of the Cen­tral Bank Act and Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act, both had pro­vi­sions for crim­i­nal charges to be laid, which Ram­bar­ran would have had to de­fend be­fore a mag­is­trate.

“Par­lia­ment in­tend­ed that if there was a breach of ei­ther of the acts, there was a rem­e­dy to deal with that breach,” he said, as he not­ed that Im­bert did not re­veal the full rea­sons for his rec­om­men­da­tion.

Ram­bar­ran was award­ed over $5.47 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion, which was most­ly based on the salary he would have re­ceived un­der his con­tract had it not been ter­mi­nat­ed.

Al­though Ram­bar­ran was seek­ing sig­nif­i­cant vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages, as he claimed that he suf­fered psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects over what tran­spired, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad on­ly or­dered $175,000, as he not­ed that his (Ram­bar­ran’s) med­ical ex­pert could not prove that the con­di­tion she treat­ed in 2016 was di­rect­ly caused by such.

In Feb­ru­ary, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux and Mark Mo­hammed de­liv­ered a ma­jor­i­ty de­ci­sion in which they dis­missed an ap­peal from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al chal­leng­ing Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion. Jus­tice Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar dis­sent­ed.

The out­come was not a to­tal suc­cess for Ram­bar­ran as the ma­jor­i­ty re­ject­ed his counter ap­peal, sug­gest­ing that he should have re­ceived more com­pen­sa­tion.

In­stead, Jus­tice Bereaux and Mo­hammed ruled that he should have re­ceived less. They said Jus­tice Ram­per­sad was wrong to or­der $175,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages and that Ram­bar­ran be paid his per­for­mance bonus­es for the two re­main­ing years of his con­tract.

Ram­bar­ran was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Mau­reen Rad­hay, and Sharon Be­doe. Clay Hack­ett and Brent James ap­peared along­side Mendes for the State.