JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

High Court judge rules parts of sedition law unconstitutional

by

DEREK ACHONG
2021 days ago
20200113
Justice Seepersad ruled that the legislation is vague, uncertain and can lead to arbitrary application.

Justice Seepersad ruled that the legislation is vague, uncertain and can lead to arbitrary application.

GUARDIAN

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad has struck down el­e­ments of this coun­try's colo­nial-age sedi­tion leg­is­la­tion.

De­liv­er­ing a 50 page judge­ment at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain this morn­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that Sec­tions 3 and 4 of the leg­is­la­tion, which pre­scribe the of­fence of sedi­tion, are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the leg­is­la­tion is vague, un­cer­tain and can lead to ar­bi­trary ap­pli­ca­tion.

He al­so ruled that the leg­is­la­tion is not com­pat­i­ble with a sov­er­eign de­mo­c­ra­t­ic state as it lim­its con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion and free­dom of the press.

The nov­el con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge was brought by for­mer sec­re­tary-gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), the late Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, be­fore his death in No­vem­ber, last year.

In the law­suit, Ma­haraj's lawyers con­tend­ed that the leg­is­la­tion—which was passed in 1920 and amend­ed sev­er­al times be­tween 1961 and 1976—breached cit­i­zens' con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion, free­dom of the press and free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and as­sem­bly.

They claimed that Sec­tions 3 and 6 of the leg­is­la­tion, which de­fines a sedi­tious in­ten­tion and the pub­li­ca­tion of such, is un­pre­dictable and al­lows for dis­crim­i­na­tion.

In or­der to suc­ceed in the claim, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad need­ed to agree to by­pass the leg­is­la­tion's sav­ing clause, which pre­cludes it from ju­di­cial in­ter­pre­ta­tion ex­cept in sce­nar­ios when it can be found in­com­pat­i­ble with the pro­vi­sions of the con­sti­tu­tion.

Ma­haraj's lawyers con­tend­ed that the sav­ings clause was on­ly meant for a lim­it­ed pe­ri­od of time and should be de­clared un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's Of­fice called on Jus­tice Seep­er­sad to re­ject the law­suit as it claimed that it may lead to a moun­tain of lit­i­ga­tion from per­sons at­tempt­ing to avoid be­ing pros­e­cut­ed.

Al­though it ad­mit­ted that sedi­tion laws have been re­moved in some coun­tries, it not­ed that they still ex­ist in South Africa and Cana­da.

"The right to crit­i­cise does not mean you can­not at­tract the penal­ties every State has put in place to pro­tect its in­tegri­ty," Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein, who led the le­gal team for the AG's Of­fice, said in his sub­mis­sions in the case.

Ma­haraj filed the law­suit af­ter po­lice ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants on the SDMS's me­dia house Cen­tral Broad­cast­ing Ser­vices, af­ter Ma­haraj made a se­ries of in­cen­di­ary state­ments on his Ma­ha Sab­ha Strikes Back pro­gramme on TV Jaagri­ti on April 15, 2019.

In the broad­cast, Ma­haraj had claimed that cit­i­zens liv­ing in To­ba­go were lazy and la­belled the men as rapists.

No crim­i­nal charges were brought against him, al­though he had sug­gest­ed that such was in­evitable while ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers dur­ing the SDMS In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions.

Sev­er­al trade unions con­sid­ered join­ing Ma­haraj's claim af­ter Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke was charged with sedi­tion over state­ments he made dur­ing a protest at TSTT, last year. How­ev­er, no one stepped for­ward to for­mal­ly join the case when it went on tri­al, last De­cem­ber.

Af­ter Ma­haraj passed away on No­vem­ber 16, his son Vi­jay ap­plied to be sub­sti­tut­ed as the claimant in the law­suit.

Ma­haraj was rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, Ste­fan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan. The AG's Of­fice was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Josephi­na Bap­tiste-Mo­hammed and Sean Julien.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored