SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired Jus­tice Stan­ley John has called for a com­plete re­struc­tur­ing of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment (CLD) of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA).

His rec­om­men­da­tion comes af­ter a five-month probe in­to the State’s fail­ure to de­fend a ma­li­cious claim by nine ac­cused of kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man in 2006, which led to the men be­ing award­ed a $20 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion by High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der in Jan­u­ary.

The over­haul, John said, would avoid any re­cur­rence of miss­ing files. It will en­tail dig­i­tal­is­ing most of the work and get­ting rid of the pa­per.

It is al­so a bid to strength­en the AGLA giv­en the vol­ume of lit­i­ga­tion it now faces.

In ad­di­tion, it would make the de­part­ment more ef­fi­cient, which would sup­port oth­er de­part­ments in the AGLA in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

This was con­tained in a 60-page de­tailed re­port that he hand­ed over to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour on Thurs­day.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, John said the com­plete re­struc­tur­ing of the CLD would en­sure that the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment per­forms a crit­i­cal role in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

The CLD is un­der the am­bit of the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al Of­fice by ad­vis­ing the State on all as­pects of civ­il law.

It al­so rep­re­sents the State in both Con­sti­tu­tion­al and civ­il pro­ceed­ings, as­sists in the for­mu­la­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy with­in the lim­its of the law, and vets fi­nan­cial doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to loan agree­ments and bond is­sues on the do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

 In the next cou­ple of months, John said, he hopes the pub­lic would have trust and faith in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“The aim and ob­jec­tive of the re­port is to have con­fi­dence in the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. The of­fice of the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al be­ing the largest civ­il law cham­ber in the coun­try.”

With con­sti­tu­tion­al and ju­di­cial re­view mat­ters sky­rock­et­ing, Jus­tice John said,

“We have to keep up.”

Miss­ing files

In Jan­u­ary, High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der or­dered $20 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for the nine ac­cused–Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, and An­to­nio Charles–when she de­liv­ered her de­ci­sion in their ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case.

The group had filed the law­suit al­most four years af­ter they were freed of the charges in May 2016.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al en­tered an ap­pear­ance in the case but failed to de­fend it, lead­ing the group’s le­gal team, led by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, to suc­cess­ful­ly ob­tain a de­fault judg­ment against it in Jan­u­ary 2021. The State has since chal­lenged the award to the nine men.

Naipaul-Cool­man’s vo­lu­mi­nous file, ac­cord­ing to Ar­mour, dis­ap­peared one day af­ter the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al was served with the court doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to the ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case.

“On May 29, 2020, the State of Case and a Claim Form (for the ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case) were served on the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment. An of­fi­cer of that de­part­ment signed for ac­cep­tance of that ser­vice. The record shows that on June 22, 2020, a file was opened for that mat­ter and was sent to the (then) So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al (Car­ol Her­nan­dez) for as­sign­ment. There­after the file dis­ap­peared,” Ar­mour had said.

This caused pub­lic scruti­ny, which led to two in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­ing launched.

John and re­tired Jus­tice Rol­ston Nel­son were ap­point­ed by Ar­mour in Feb­ru­ary to ad­vise the State on the way for­ward, fol­low­ing the court’s award.

Soon af­ter the team was an­nounced, the file was re­turned and hand­ed over to act­ing So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al Kar­leen Seenath who trans­ferred it to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team.

In April, John had de­liv­ered an 18-page in­ter­im re­port on the probe in­to the dis­ap­pear­ing and reap­pear­ing file to Ar­mour and had promised to sub­mit the fi­nal re­port by June 30.

Rec­om­men­da­tions

John said the re­port out­lines sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions.

“It’s re­al­ly a re­struc­tur­ing of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment. The re­port is cen­tered around the com­plete re­struc­tur­ing of that de­part­ment and dig­i­tal­is­ing most of the work, you know, get­ting rid of the pa­per,” John said.

John, the lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the probe, said no time frame was giv­en for those rec­om­men­da­tions to be im­ple­ment­ed.

“There is no time frame. That is up to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al now. Some of it has to be tak­en to Cab­i­net be­cause of some of the changes we are rec­om­mend­ing. But that is a mat­ter now for the ex­ec­u­tive.”

John said he was pleased with the re­port and the work that was put in­to it.

“It re­quired a lot of work. We did our best to present a thor­ough re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions that would avoid any re­cur­rence of what hap­pened in the past. Yes, it was chal­leng­ing be­cause of what we are look­ing at. It is re­al­ly the re­struc­tur­ing of a de­part­ment in which lit­i­ga­tion has grown al­most 100 per cent of the last ten to 15 years, you know, staffing has re­mained at a cer­tain lev­el.”