Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The son of former Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) secretary general Satnarayan Maharaj will have to wait to learn the fate of the final appeal in his late father’s legal challenge against this country’s colonial-age sedition legislation.
Five Law Lords of the United Kingdom-based Privy Council reserved their decision in their appeal after hearing submissions at the UK Supreme Court Building in London, England, yesterday.
In the appeal, Maharaj’s son Vijay, who was allowed to continue the case after his father’s passing in late 2019, claimed that three Court of Appeal Judges got it wrong in 2021 when they overturned High Court Judge Frank Seepersad’s decision to strike down aspects of the legislation, which he ruled were unconstitutional.
Maharaj’s lawyers are contending that the Sedition Act is vague and uncertain and is not protected by the constitutional saving clause, which protects similar pre-Independence legislation from judicial review.
They are also claiming that it violates the principle of freedom of expression, which is a central tenet of a democratic state.
Responding to the appeal, Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein maintained that the legislation is valid and protected by the savings clause.
“The fact that legislation is wide and generalised does not deny it the status of law,” Hosein said.
He also called on the board to dismiss the appeal based on the Privy Council’s recent ruling on the constitutional validity of the mandatory death penalty for murder. While the Privy Council ruled that the sentence was cruel and unusual punishment it did not invalidate it as it stated that Parliament had the final say.
“The Judiciary is now being invited to extend its power beyond that which was contemplated by the Constitution and to engage in an exercise that might result in the proliferation of litigation pertaining to existing laws and thus negate the very issue which the savings law provision was designed to prevent,” Hosein said.
In their decision, which is currently under challenge, Appellate Judges Mark Mohammed, Charmaine Pemberton, and Maria Wilson ruled that Justice Seepersad was wrong to uphold Maharaj’s lawsuit.
While Seepersad ruled that segments of the Sedition Act were too vague and uncertain to be considered a valid law, the judges disagreed.
“Some aspects of the offence of sedition, by their very nature, (unlike many other criminal offences of which three examples are murder, rape, and robbery), are not capable of a precise definition. They are therefore best described by a general reference to the nature of the activities as opposed to the methods by which they can be committed since they can occur in many varied circumstances,” the appeal panel said.
The panel suggested that the generalisation in wording helped to ensure that there was a level of flexibility with changing circumstances and societal evolution.
“Actions which historically might have had a tendency to deprave and corrupt or to shock and outrage the feelings of the general public or sections of the public, would not necessarily have the same impact in contemporary times,” they said.
Despite essentially reversing Seepersad’s decision in the case, the appeal panel did rule that Seepersad was correct to allow Maharaj’s son to continue the case after his father’s death in late 2019.
Maharaj filed the lawsuit after police executed search warrants on the SDMS’s media house Central Broadcasting Services Limited (CBSL) after he made a series of incendiary statements on his Maha Sabha Strikes Back programme on TV Jaagriti on April 15, 2019.
Maharaj claimed that citizens living in Tobago were lazy and labelled the men as rapists.
While no criminal charges were eventually brought against him or CBSL, he suggested that such was inevitable while addressing supporters during SDMS Indian Arrival Day celebrations.
Maharaj’s son was represented by Peter Knox, KC, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh, Stefan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan.
