Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer chair­man of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion, Sunil Sookraj, has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Cab­i­net of hypocrisy over the de­ci­sion to re­voke his ap­point­ment, cit­ing his per­ceived links to the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Sookraj’s at­tor­neys, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, lev­elled the ac­cu­sa­tion in a ju­di­cial re­view claim filed in late No­vem­ber last year.

In court doc­u­ments ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, his le­gal team ques­tioned why Sookraj was sin­gled out for re­vo­ca­tion while oth­er for­mer com­mis­sion mem­bers al­leged­ly re­ceived State board ap­point­ments de­spite their po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.

“The Cab­i­net has his­tor­i­cal­ly ap­point­ed per­sons with strong po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions as ju­di­cial and qua­si-ju­di­cial of­fi­cers and has al­so ap­point­ed per­sons hold­ing such of­fices to the boards of State en­ti­ties,” the at­tor­neys stat­ed.

They claimed that for­mer com­mis­sion mem­ber Pro­fes­sor David Alexan­der, who served along­side Sookraj be­tween 2013 and 2016, at­tend­ed Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal meet­ings with him dur­ing their tenure and was ap­point­ed a di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny last year.

The fil­ings al­so ref­er­enced the ap­point­ment of for­mer UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh as an In­dus­tri­al Court judge last year.

“Such con­duct amounts to in­equal­i­ty of treat­ment by a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty as guar­an­teed by Sec­tion 4(d) of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” the at­tor­neys ar­gued.

An af­fi­davit at­tached to the claim shows Sookraj stat­ing that he open­ly at­tend­ed UNC meet­ings be­fore and af­ter his ini­tial ap­point­ment to the com­mis­sion in 2013, dur­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first term in of­fice.

He not­ed that af­ter his three-year term end­ed in 2016, he re­ceived con­sec­u­tive reap­point­ments un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, the most re­cent in late 2024. Ac­cord­ing to Sookraj, no con­cerns were raised about his per­ceived po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tions pri­or to the re­vo­ca­tion.

Sookraj said he was shocked when he re­ceived a let­ter from the Pres­i­dent in Sep­tem­ber last year re­vok­ing his ap­point­ment. He claimed he on­ly learned the ba­sis of the de­ci­sion af­ter threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to his af­fi­davit, Cab­i­net re­lied on pho­tographs show­ing him with PNM Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date Richie Sookhai on nom­i­na­tion day for last year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He was al­so ac­cused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in a wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve host­ed by the PNM’s Cen­tral Re­gion­al Of­fice.

Sookraj did not de­ny ap­pear­ing in the pho­tographs but re­ject­ed claims that he was cam­paign­ing.

“I was present as a show of af­fec­tion and sup­port for Mr Sookhai as my friend. At no point did I en­dorse him or can­vas on his be­half,” he stat­ed.

“The pho­tographs lack con­text and do not prove any ac­tive cam­paign­ing by me,” he added.

He al­so main­tained that his in­volve­ment in a wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise for St Vin­cent fol­low­ing the 2021 erup­tion of the La Soufrière vol­cano was hu­man­i­tar­i­an rather than po­lit­i­cal.

“I was con­tribut­ing wa­ter as a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ges­ture in sup­port of a re­lief pro­gramme for the peo­ple of St Vin­cent,” he said.

Sookraj fur­ther claimed he was de­nied nat­ur­al jus­tice be­cause he was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions be­fore the de­ci­sion was tak­en.

“If Cab­i­net had gen­uine con­cerns re­gard­ing my im­par­tial­i­ty, it could have sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion, no­ti­fied me of the al­le­ga­tions, or af­ford­ed me an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond,” he stat­ed.

He al­so con­tend­ed that the prin­ci­ples of ju­di­cial con­duct adopt­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry and ref­er­enced by Cab­i­net do not strict­ly ap­ply to the com­mis­sion, de­spite its qua­si-ju­di­cial func­tions.

“Any ap­pli­ca­tion of the prin­ci­ples must nec­es­sar­i­ly take in­to ac­count the con­text of ap­point­ments of mem­bers of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion be­ing on the ad­vice of Cab­i­net and al­so the his­tor­i­cal prac­tice of Cab­i­net … rec­om­mend­ing in­di­vid­u­als to such of­fices who have strong po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions,” he said.

The mat­ter has been as­signed to High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran.

Through the law­suit, Sookraj is seek­ing the $40,160 month­ly salary and ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fits he claims he would have re­ceived for the re­main­der of his con­tract had it not been ter­mi­nat­ed. He is al­so seek­ing dam­ages for rep­u­ta­tion­al harm.

“It has al­so been dif­fi­cult for me to ob­tain al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment giv­en the pub­lic per­cep­tion that my ap­point­ment was re­voked for wrong­do­ing,” he stat­ed.

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion was es­tab­lished un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act 2000. It is em­pow­ered to hear ap­peals against de­ci­sions and des­ig­na­tions made by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty and, as a su­pe­ri­or court of record, to de­ter­mine pri­vate en­vi­ron­men­tal com­plaints from cit­i­zens.

Sookraj’s ap­point­ment was ter­mi­nat­ed un­der Sec­tion 82(7) of the Act, which al­lows for re­vo­ca­tion on the grounds of “in­abil­i­ty, mis­be­hav­iour or on the ground of any em­ploy­ment or in­ter­est which is in­com­pat­i­ble with the func­tions of a mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion.”

In ad­di­tion to Ma­haraj, Sookraj is rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Vi­jaya Ma­haraj and Nyala Badal.