A group of 64 Venezue­lan mi­grants de­tained at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port has been grant­ed con­di­tion­al re­lease pend­ing the out­come of their law­suit over their pro­posed de­por­ta­tion.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Jus­tice Ricky Rahim or­dered that the group be re­leased on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion which will re­main in place un­til their joint sub­stan­tive law­suit is even­tu­al­ly de­ter­mined.

While the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion was al­so barred from ex­e­cut­ing the de­por­ta­tion or­ders against the group, Jus­tice Rahim did not in­val­i­date them (the or­ders).

The mi­grants were among a large group of fel­low na­tion­als who were de­tained for im­mi­gra­tion of­fences at a night­club in St James on Ju­ly 8.

Two weeks ago, how­ev­er, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held a claim from six of the de­tainees in which they con­tend­ed that they were un­law­ful­ly held at the lo­ca­tion, which was of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed as a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic but not as an im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion sta­tion.

Two days lat­er, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad con­sid­ered a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion from an­oth­er of the de­tainees.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did not or­der his re­lease as his col­league did with the six oth­ers, as the case came up for hear­ing af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is­sued the sug­gest­ed de­c­la­ra­tion re­gard­ing the lo­ca­tion. Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did rule that he would be en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion for his brief un­law­ful de­ten­tion, which would be cal­cu­lat­ed at a lat­er date.

In their ap­pli­ca­tion for ju­di­cial re­view, the group was main­ly chal­leng­ing the fail­ure of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds to place them on su­per­vi­sion or­ders so that they could com­plete their asy­lum seek­er/refugee ap­pli­ca­tions with the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR).

In de­cid­ing that the group should be grant­ed leave to pur­sue its sub­stan­tive case, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer first con­sid­ers whether de­tainees should be re­leased on su­per­vi­sion or­ders pend­ing de­por­ta­tion.

He not­ed that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who is re­spon­si­ble for sign­ing off on de­por­ta­tions, has the dis­cre­tion to ve­to such su­per­vi­sion or­ders.

“The court, there­fore, does not ac­cept the ar­gu­ment that the du­ty lies at first with the Min­is­ter to con­sid­er whether an or­der of su­per­vi­sion must be made when mak­ing the de­por­ta­tion or­der,” he said.

Jus­tice Rahim al­so re­ject­ed the de­tainees’ claims over the ef­fect of the de­layed des­ig­na­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty on their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion.

“On the face of it, the ar­gu­ment that their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion is un­law­ful be­cause they had been un­law­ful­ly de­tained pri­or to the des­ig­na­tion is a whol­ly un­mer­i­to­ri­ous one, in that it is not sound in law and there­fore holds no re­al­is­tic prospect of suc­cess,” he said.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Rahim did rule that they had raised a valid chal­lenge over the fail­ure of both par­ties to con­sid­er the su­per­vi­sion or­ders af­ter de­por­ta­tion could not be quick­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed af­ter their ini­tial ar­rest.

“The court is there­fore of the view that the ap­pli­cants have demon­strat­ed an ar­guable case with a re­al­is­tic prospect of suc­cess that the pe­ri­od of de­ten­tion has not been that which is rea­son­able for the pur­pose of de­ten­tion and shall grant leave of this limb on­ly,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

In de­cid­ing on whether to grant an in­junc­tion or­der­ing their con­di­tion­al re­lease pend­ing the out­come of their UN­HCR ap­pli­ca­tions, Jus­tice Rahim sug­gest­ed that it (the in­junc­tion) should in­stead be re­lat­ed to the out­come of the sub­stan­tive case.

“The ap­pli­ca­tions be­fore that body do not form part of do­mes­tic law and so to make such an or­der would, in ef­fect, in­di­rect­ly leapfrog over Par­lia­ment to im­pose a du­ty for the Min­is­ter and by ex­ten­sion to court to take in­to ac­count the oblig­a­tions of an un­in­cor­po­rat­ed treaty,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

He ruled that the bal­ance of jus­tice re­quired the grant­i­ng of the in­ter­im or­der, as he ref­er­enced ev­i­dence of the de­plorable con­di­tions at the fa­cil­i­ty and al­le­ga­tions of abuse to­wards de­tainees.

“The ev­i­dence in this case, should it be true, demon­strates noth­ing short of in­hu­mane treat­ment to­wards some mem­bers of the group, and their cir­cum­stances of de­ten­tion fall far short of what is to be ex­pect­ed to say the least,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

“Not on­ly is it like­ly to be harm­ful to the ap­pli­cants but such ac­tions may re­flect ad­verse­ly on the rep­u­ta­tion of the na­tion on the in­ter­na­tion­al front,” he added.

The case, which was deemed ur­gent, was trans­ferred to Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams.

Jus­tice Rahim’s rul­ing in the case was met with ju­bi­la­tion from dozens of the group’s rel­a­tives, who gath­ered out­side the of­fice of the law firm that rep­re­sent­ed them at Keate Street in Port-of-Spain.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, at­tor­ney Blaine So­bri­an, of Quan­tum Le­gal, de­scribed the out­come as a vic­to­ry for hu­man­i­ty.

“When you look around and you see these women and chil­dren whose loved ones are sep­a­rat­ed from them, at least for the time be­ing, we know that they will be giv­en their free­dom from the he­li­port, which is a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment, and it shows that there are some con­sid­er­a­tions as re­gards the hu­man­i­tar­i­an side of this whole mi­grant cri­sis that we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” So­bri­an said.

The mi­grants were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by El­ton Prescott, SC, Criston J Williams and Shiv­anand Mo­han.

Gre­go­ry Delzin, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Shali­ni Singh, Vin­cent Jar­dine and Avion Ro­main rep­re­sent­ed the State.