PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC—An AA Excessive Court docket choose Friday dismissed the constitutional declare filed by former legal professional normal Anand Ramlogan relating to his prison prosecution for alleged witness tampering, clearing the best way for the matter to proceed within the Justice of the Peace’s court docket.
Justice Nadia Kangaroo stated there have been no breaches of Ramlogan’s constitutional rights because the State acted throughout the authorized boundaries.
Justice Kangaroo additionally dismissed Ramlogan’s declare of entitlement to compensation for alleged breaches of his rights, saying, “The court docket has not discovered that the claimant has established a breach of his rights.” The previous legal professional normal was ordered to pay the Legal professional Normal’s prices in defending the declare.
Ramlogan was charged in 2017 with misbehavior in public workplace and obstruction of justice. The fees comply with allegations made by the director of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), David West, that Ramlogan had approached him to withdraw his witness assertion in a defamation case towards then-opposition chief Dr. Keith Rowley in 2014 in trade for being appointed as PCA director.
Ramlogan, who was the youngest individual to be appointed legal professional normal in 2010 on the age of 37, is accused of obstructing justice by utilizing threats and bribery to influence West to not give proof in Ramlogan’s defamation case towards Rowley.
Romlogan, who was faraway from the cupboard in 2015, can be accused of misbehaving in public workplace by improperly endeavoring for West to not testify on Rowley’s behalf. The offenses allegedly came about in 2014 whereas he was legal professional normal.
The offenses allegedly occurred in October 2014 whereas former police commissioner Gary Griffith, additionally a witness within the case, served as nationwide safety minister.
Shortly after former appearing police commissioner Stephen Williams initiated an investigation into the allegations in February 2015, then-prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar fired Ramlogan and Griffith.
On July 11, 2022, when the preliminary inquiry into expenses towards Ramlogan was anticipated to start, his attorneys requested for a referral to the Excessive Court docket.
Former chief Justice of the Peace Maria Busby Earle-Caddle agreed with the referral after she was instructed that if the problem was profitable, the State won’t be capable to proceed prosecuting Ramlogan.
In his constitutional declare, Ramlogan contended his constitutional rights, together with the rights to his non-public and household life, had been breached when three Excessive Court docket judges and a Justice of the Peace granted warrants to police to faucet his phone strains in 2019.
He additionally contended there was an “illegal” issuance of warrants by one of many judges for the interception of communication information, the illegal retrieval and assortment of communications information warrants beneath the Interception of Communications Act (IOCA), and “the obvious bias” of the choose who issued 5 interception orders on Could 14, 2019.
“The essence of those complaints is that the State misapplied major laws, particularly the IOCA, to safe entry to personal telecommunications information belonging to the accused, and that upon this being identified, wrongfully and in unhealthy religion misused the warrant course of beneath Part 5 IOPEA (Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act),” the grievance stated.
Justice Kangaroo stated there was no look bias on the choose’s half. She additionally stated Ramlogan had but to reveal he suffered prejudice and that the admissibility of the proof obtained by the warrants was not but decided as a ruling on the evidential objections had been placed on maintain till she gave her verdict.
She referred to the grievance as a “leaping off the gun,” ruling that Ramlogan had full rights to a good trial. He didn’t reveal any loss by acquiring the warrants, because the Justice of the Peace’s court docket had but to rule on the evidential objections.
She stated that after that was completed if he had complaints, he might return to the Excessive Court docket with one other problem.
In her ruling, delivered throughout a digital court docket listening to, Justice Kangaroo additionally dismissed Ramlogan’s grievance of a conspiracy towards him, discovering there was “no malicious intent on the a part of the police” to acquire the warrants.
She additionally stated there was no proof of an incapability to defend himself, including that the warrants had been lawfully sought and that nothing precluded the police from acquiring such warrants if there was an inexpensive suspicion of against the law having been dedicated.
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