The Law As­so­ci­a­tion has told the Gov­ern­ment that it needs to call the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions soon. This fol­lows a rul­ing of the Privy Coun­cil on the mat­ter.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the As­so­ci­a­tion said in Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj vs the Cab­i­net of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Privy Coun­cil, by a ma­jor­i­ty of three to two, found that the changes to sec­tions 11 and 12 of the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act brought in­to ef­fect by the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Act of 2022, could not law­ful­ly ex­tend the terms of of­fice of present coun­cil­lors and al­der­men from three to four years.

“The rea­son­ing be­hind that find­ing is in keep­ing with the prin­ci­ple of leg­isla­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tion where­by leg­is­la­tion does not or­di­nar­i­ly have a retroac­tive ef­fect. In oth­er words, the ma­jor­i­ty de­ci­sion of the Privy Coun­cil is that cit­i­zens had vot­ed Coun­cil­lors in for a three-year term, and Cab­i­net could not law­ful­ly ex­tend that term by in­ter­pret­ing the sec­tions as hav­ing a retroac­tive ef­fect,” it said.

The Privy Coun­cil, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion said, found it un­nec­es­sary to pro­nounce whether the post­pone­ment of the elec­tions in­fringed on the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of cit­i­zens.

Ac­cord­ing to the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, head­ed by Lynette See­baran-Suite, SC, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is al­leged to have said that any mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the press of the find­ings of the Privy Coun­cil to the ef­fect that the Gov­ern­ment had usurped peo­ple’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights could bor­der on con­tempt. It added that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­lud­ed that nei­ther the Court of Ap­peal nor any of the five judges of the Privy Coun­cil had found such ef­fect.

“In this, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is cor­rect, and he is re­port­ed to say that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to abide by the de­ci­sion. How­ev­er, press com­men­tary or pub­lic com­men­tary, even if they do over­state or mis­in­ter­pret the rul­ing of the Privy Coun­cil, would not be a con­tempt of court. Com­men­tary on a mat­ter of pub­lic im­por­tance, in­clud­ing even mis­lead­ing or mis­in­formed com­men­tary, is pro­tect­ed by free­dom of ex­pres­sion and free­dom of the press,” it said.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said com­men­tary on the in­stant de­ci­sion can­not in­ter­fere with the al­ready com­plet­ed Privy Coun­cil mat­ter and, there­fore, can­not have the ef­fect of in­ter­fer­ing with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

“Fur­ther still, in light of the rul­ing of the Privy Coun­cil, pub­lic dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing whether the ac­tions of lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies af­ter the ex­pi­ra­tion of their three-year terms are null and void are valid ones and are pro­tect­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“The clear im­pli­ca­tions of the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing are that the Gov­ern­ment must call lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions as soon as pos­si­ble and must con­sid­er val­i­dat­ing leg­is­la­tion to rem­e­dy any il­le­gal­i­ty that may have en­sued as a re­sult of the post­pone­ment of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions,” the Law As­so­ci­a­tion said.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so ex­plained that the law of con­tempt pos­tu­lates the fun­da­men­tal su­prema­cy of law and aims to pun­ish peo­ple who in­ter­fere with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

It said whilst its ap­pli­ca­tion is wide-rang­ing, it is im­por­tant to keep in mind that the Con­sti­tu­tion al­so pro­tects free­dom of ex­pres­sion and free­dom of the press.

“Fair com­ment on a mat­ter of pub­lic in­ter­est is there­fore al­lowed,” it said.