Derek Achong

Rel­a­tives of for­mer Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Sat­narayan Ma­haraj will learn the fate of his nov­el con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge against this coun­try’s colo­nial-age sedi­tion leg­is­la­tion to­day. 

High Court judge Frank Seep­er­sad is sched­uled to de­liv­er his judg­ment in the case at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, this morn­ing. 

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 Sec­tion 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, Seep­er­sad must 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 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 can not 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. 

Ma­haraj claimed that cit­i­zens liv­ing in To­ba­go are lazy and la­belled the men as rapists.

While no crim­i­nal charges were even­tu­al­ly brought against him and he sug­gest­ed that such was in­evitable while ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers dur­ing 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 was al­lowed to be sub­sti­tut­ed as the claimant in the law­suit. 

Ma­haraj is be­ing 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.