Derek Achong

High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo will de­cide whether Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings should be grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al from re­post­ing al­le­ga­tions against him on her so­cial me­dia ac­counts on June 10. 

Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo re­served her de­ci­sion on the in­ter­im in­junc­tion sought by Cum­mings af­ter hear­ing ex­ten­sive sub­mis­sions from his and her lawyers dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing yes­ter­day. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in sup­port of the in­junc­tion, Cum­mings’ lawyer Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai claimed that his client was con­cerned that al­le­ga­tions made by Lutch­me­di­al at pub­lic meet­ings and sub­se­quent­ly post­ed on her Face­book page, would be shared by users of the so­cial me­dia plat­form al­though they (the al­le­ga­tions) could even­tu­al­ly be deemed to be defam­a­to­ry. 

“The sting is with Face­book users shar­ing it as if it is the gospel truth,” Hove-Ma­sai­sai said.

He claimed that the pro­posed in­junc­tion on­ly per­tained to Lutch­me­di­al and would not pre­vent oth­er cit­i­zens from dis­cussing the al­le­ga­tions against Cum­mings al­ready in the pub­lic do­main. 

“We have not brought the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in this,” he said. 

He stat­ed that Lutch­me­di­al even­tu­al­ly had to prove the al­le­ga­tions she made, al­though his client pro­vid­ed ev­i­dence chal­leng­ing her claims against him. 

In his sub­mis­sions, Lutch­me­di­al’s at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, said the in­junc­tion would breach Lutch­me­di­al’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to po­lit­i­cal ex­pres­sion. 

“If you grant an in­junc­tion it will have a chill­ing ef­fect on democ­ra­cy by gag­ging and muz­zling Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al,” Ram­lo­gan said. 

“The horse has al­ready bolt­ed and they want to se­cure the horse af­ter it has made three laps,” he added. 

Ram­lo­gan claimed that Lutch­me­di­al’s al­le­ga­tions were based on in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main and Cum­mings took nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­spond. 

“He has been hold­ing press con­fer­ences to re­but the al­le­ga­tions and to tell his side of the sto­ry,” Ram­lo­gan said. 

Ram­lo­gan sug­gest­ed that some of Cum­mings’ per­son­al in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing his tele­phone num­ber and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card num­ber, which Cum­mings claimed Lutch­me­di­al im­prop­er­ly re­leased, could be eas­i­ly ob­tained by mem­bers of the pub­lic. 

“Your name and ID card num­ber are on the elec­toral list pinned up­on every rum shop,” he said. 

Ram­lo­gan not­ed that even if his client was not suc­cess­ful in de­fend­ing the law­suit, pay­ing Cum­mings dam­ages would be suf­fi­cient com­pen­sa­tion. 

Ear­li­er this month, Cum­mings first threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against Lutch­me­di­al, the Trinidad Ex­press, its ed­i­tor-in-chief Omatie Ly­der and jour­nal­ist An­na Ram­dass, over com­ments Lutch­me­di­al made over a leaked T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Spe­cial Branch re­port dur­ing a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do on May 5. 

Cum­mings’ lawyers filed the law­suit two days lat­er, af­ter none of the par­ties re­spond­ed to the le­gal threat by the dead­line they had set. Cum­mings then threat­ened an­oth­er law­suit over com­ments al­leged­ly made by her dur­ing a sub­se­quent UNC meet­ing. 

Cum­mings’ lawyers claimed that Lutch­me­di­al leaked con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing a source of funds de­c­la­ra­tion form, two let­ters of awards and a cheque which all ref­er­enced Cum­mings. 

Since the Spe­cial Branch re­port was leaked, Cum­mings has re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and land grab­bing con­tained in it.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has al­so re­fused to take any ac­tion in re­la­tion to the re­port, as he claimed that the Op­po­si­tion was us­ing it for po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage whilst know­ing that the in­for­ma­tion con­tained with­in it was un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed. 

Lutch­me­di­al is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal, while Jen­nifer Farah-Tull ap­peared along­side Hove-Ma­sai­sai for Cum­mings. The news­pa­per and its jour­nal­ists were rep­re­sent­ed by Fa­rees Ho­sein.