AN application by former Registrar of the Industrial Court, Marilin Sammy-Wallace for judicial review of the decision of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, to terminate her appointment, was heard yesterday by a High Court judge.

The former Registrar is contending that her dismissal in January this year is linked to her questioning the spending of “entertainment” monies by certain court officers. Filed against the Attorney-General, the case came up for hearing before Justice Peter Jamadar in the First Civil Court, San Fernando. Sammy-Wallace was represented by attorney Khemraj Harrikissoon. State Attorney Nadine Nabbie informed the judge that Martin Daly SC, will be appearing for the Commission. Judicial Review applications are usually heard ex-parte but when the case was heard last week, Justice Jamadar ordered that the commission be served having regard to the sensitive nature of the case.

Nabbie informed the judge that the State had no objections to leave being granted to Sammy-Wallace to review the Commission’s decision. In her application, Sammy-Wallace stated that following completion of probabtion as registrar (January 2002-2003), the Commission informed her by letter (January 10, 2003,) that she had been reverted to her former position of State Counsel III in the Inland Revenue Division, Ministry of Finance. According to documents filed with an affidavit, Sammy-Wallace contended that she verbally and in writing, questioned expenditure and monies incurred under official entertainment. Sammy-Wallace has filed letters along with her application, including one which she wrote to Prime Minister Patrick Manning in his capacity as Minister of Finance, indicating the position she took in not authorising the payments. She also submitted letters to the Auditor General and to the Comptroller of Accounts.

The former Industrial Court registrar has also filed several documents to support her claim that the Commission took a biased view on acting on certain reports about her job performamce. Justice Jamadar yesterday ordered that the applicant’s attorney file skeletal legal arguments by 9 am today, to be served on the attorney for the Commission. Daly was given until tomorrow to reply to the submissions. Attorney Nabbie said that the matter involved certain judges of the Idustrial Court, the commission and the Director of Personnel. She asked Justice Jamadar to transfer the case to the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain. Jamadar refused the request and fixed continuing hearing for Thursday before him.

A FEMALE cashier at a pharmacy was yesterday shot twice when armed bandits stormed the Alyce Glen Shopping Centre just after lunchtime. Marsha Rampersad, 21, of Sea Trace, Patna Village, Diego Martin, was up to late evening warded at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) with gunshot wounds to the left leg and arm.

Reports are that around 1.13pm three armed men pulled up in front of the A&L Pharmacy, Petit Valley, in a white B13 Sentra vehicle, whose registration number is believed by the police to have been altered. The men entered the pharmacy and held up Rampersad, relieving her of an undisclosed sum of money. The gun then went off striking Rampersad twice. Police said the bandits then stole a cellular phone belonging to one of the owners of the pharmacy, before  escaping. A report was made and an Emergency-999 vehicle with PC Calliste  arrived on the scene, and took Rampersad to hospital, where she is reported to be in a stable condition.

Senior officers under Sr Supt Selwyn Glasgow and including Insp Narcis Cadette, Sgt Stephen Ramsubhag, Cpl Hayden Hannays, PC Alexis and others from the Homicide department also visited the scene and conducted investigations. Customers and workers at the pharmacy were also interviewed. At the scene yesterday, a worker told Newsday that the three men simply walked in, held up the cashier then scampered when the gun went off. She also said that it was the second time in as many weeks the pharmacy had been held up and robbed.

Police sources confirmed with Newsday that a similar modus operandi was used when the first robbery occurred. Police said in that robbery incident, three armed men carried out the act, however, they could not say whether or not they were the same men. No arrests had been made up to late evening and Cpl Hannays of the Four Roads Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is continuing investigations.

PORT-OF-SPAIN police have strengthened night patrols following shootings in Laventille last weekend which left one man dead and another hospitalised in unsatisfactory condition.

Police sources told Newsday in the wake of the murders of Neil “Big Neil” Lewis and Jamaat-al-Muslimeen member Mark Guerra, surveillance and patrols were increased as police feared an upsurge in gang violence and revenge shootings. The fact that no major murder spree has occurred in Laventille since the Lewis and Guerra murders, have been attributed to surveillance and patrol work. However, two weekend incidents which left one man dead and another wounded, have led to an increase in patrols of the area.

Sources also said these patrols are part of the second stage of Commissioner of Police Hilton Guy’s three-month crime crackdown. Commissioner Guy plans to have police focus more attention to removing illegal firearms from the community during the second stage which continues until June. In the weekend murder, Dexter Charles, 24, of Laventille Road, East Dry River, was fatally shot while liming outside the Witco Desperado Pan Theatre on Saturday night. Charles succumbed to his injuries at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. An autopsy  yesterday at the Forensic Sciences Centre, confirmed that he died as a result of shock and haemorrhage consistent with a single gunshot to the back.

In the other weekend incident, a Laventille man was shot in the neck and seriously wounded while walking along a road in Straker Village, Laventille, on Sunday. According to police reports, at around 9 pm Andy Allen, 24, a labourer who lives in Picton, was walking in Straker Village when he was struck in the neck. He sought assistance at the home of a resident who telephoned the police and took the bleeding man to hospital. Allen underwent emergency surgery and up to late yesterday remained warded in an unsatisfactory condition. Visiting the scene were Besson Street police officers led by Cpl Henry Dann.

OFFICIALS from the Venezue-lan Embassy contacted Malabar police and the Immigration Department yesterday on the status of a 52-year-old Venezuelan national who fled his homeland to escape prosecution for murder.

The man, who was arrested in Malabar a week ago, will be deported back to his homeland to face the charges from which he fled. Sources at the Embassy said although there are no existing extradition treaties between Trini-dad and Tobago and Venezuela, they anticipate no legal problems in having the fugitive sent back to Venezuela. The man has been living in this country as an illegal immigrant for the past two years.

Head of the Consular Section in the Venezuelan Embassy, Veronica Abreau, told Newsday officials from the Embassy would be making contact with the Venezuelan police and Immigration authorities this week to begin the deportation process . She said the Venezuelan Embassy only got involved in the issue yesterday when they called the local police and Immigration Departments.

IF Regional Health Authorities agree to give doctors the over time rate they are seeking this “will go a long way” in making them happier about returning to work, said Assistant Secretary of the Medical Professionals Association (MPATT) Dr Lakhan Roop yesterday.

MPATT has been meeting with doctors “trying to get a position” on proposals submitted by the RHA last week. Thousands of dollars separate the doctors’ salary demands and what the RHAs are offering to them – the RHAs are offering first year House Officer (junior doctors) $17,962, while MPATT is seeking $20,106. Asked what can be done to bridge the gap, Roop said one of the important areas of concern for doctors is the over time rate for service from 4 pm to midnight and midnight to 8 am. Doctors are seeking to have any additional duty calculated at the standard overtime rate of double time but the RHAs are offering overtime at 1.66 times the hourly rate, which Roop described as “unacceptable”. He said doctors are not querying the difference in the compensation packages for doctors in Trinidad and Tobago. However, he said some effort must be made to achieve parity and offering double time would help.

The doctors sent a written response to the RHAs last Friday on proposals presented at a meeting on April 7. A total of six meetings have taken place between the RHAs and doctors, although the parties were supposed to meet twice weekly. Deputy Chairman of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Dr Joel Sinanan is expected to lead negotiations in the absence of Chairman Imtiaz Ahamed who began ten days vacation leave yesterday. No date has been set by the RHAs for resumption of talks. Hospitals in the North and South West Regional Health Authorities have been operating in emergency mode since April 9 after several junior doctors began sick-out action.

Political differences dominated a press conference dealing with the role and function of three Joint Select Committees yesterday.

The press conference which was held in the Committee Room of the Red House started out with Chairman Ramesh Deosaran dispassionately explaining that they would have the power to call officers and ministers of  Government, to ask for documents and to investigate complaints from the public about the performance of ministries, Public Service Commission and statutory bodies. But the briefing ended with a vigorous argument which went on beyond the press conference between UNC MP Robin Montano and PNM MP Fitzgerald Hinds over Prime Minister Patrick Manning decision to “consort” with persons known as ‘community leaders’, such as Mark Guerra. A stern-faced Montano went to give some biographical details on Guerra. Hinds during the conference commented that “this was not the forum for that”. And Deosaran appealed for members to be more “circumspect”. But when the press conference was over, a smiling Hinds shot back: “If the Prime Minister could talk to Panday, then he could talk to anybody.”

It was the unfriendliest of all the exchanges  which took place between the Government members and the members of the Opposition. But it underscored the kind of difficulties which lay ahead for these Committees, comprising as they do of these  two adversarial elements in politics. Hinds had earlier appealed to Senator Mark and “my friends from the Opposition” to “impress on themselves and their colleagues” that “goodwill was necessary not only at the level of the committees, but at the level of Parliament”. Montano, in response, contended that he was “heartened” by Hinds’ statements. In obvious reference to Senate President’s Linda Baboolal comments, Montano stated: “Parliament is about letting the people’s representatives have their say. When the people’s representatives are shut up, the goodwill dissipates…I hope Government understands that frivolous objections of irrelevance would be met by us with such weaponry as is at our disposal”.

All the committees are chaired by Independent senators -Ramesh Deosaran, Mary King and Parvatee Anmolsingh. The Independents appeared a bit uncomfortable with some of the crosstalk. The Independents stressed that the committees were designed to bring Parliament and Government closer to the people. King said there was a conflict of interest clause which all members had to sign in order to insulate the committee from potential conflicts of interest. She added that each committee had to submit a report on each government entity and the minister had 90 days to tell the Parliament what action he had taken to address some of the problems identified by the committee. Calling on the public to get involved,  Deosaran noted that because organisations like St Jude’s, St Dominic’s would be investigated,“all the complaints of abuse and maladministration” could be addressed. He said on the question of  kidnapping, “if people feel that the police were not doing their work properly,” they were entitled to come and make their views heard.

Montano said he was looking forward to asking the members of the Police Service Commission about their tenure and about how they were dealing with crooked cops, “which we all know exist”. Asked whether he was bringing his own bias to bear on the process, Montano said he would like to think he is professional enough to control any bias. “Do you not agree that a lot is wrong in the Police Service today? he challenged the reporter. “The majority of people are not satisfied…The time has come for us to bring everything out in the open,” he said, adding that reporters “hide” behind questions. Ganga Singh, noting that the Joint Select Committees carried all the privileges of Parliament, said if people felt that there was an issue of discrimination- such as “the doctors issue” or CEPEP- “if people feel they have been unfairly treated”, they can bring it to the committee. “The spectrum is wide,” he stressed. Singh also emphasised that it was not the intention of the Committee- like some Commissions of Inquiry- to smear people’s names without the opportunity for them responding, or to be inquisitorial.

Vice-President of the Senate, Rawle Titus said it was appearing as though members were making the committees sound like a “Tribunal”. “It does not have judgmental functions”, he said, even though they would hold people accountable with a view to bringing “systematic change for development”. While everyone else said they had high expectations about the Committees, UNC’s Armin Smith seemed to be somewhat pessimistic about what the Committee could really achieve. Ministers would not want their ministries investigated and Government had a majority of members on all these Committees, he noted.  What happens when a wrong is committed? he wondered. “We mustn’t be naive” Smith said, stressing that both the Opposition and the public were powerless in the face of this reality. Saying that there should have been a committee to investigate what should be put in place “to get action” if a wrong is commited, Smith said: “To me there would be no result at the end of the day. To me we wasting we time…I think we put the cart before the horse”. Deosaran said he couldn’t bring “closure on this issue”. “People were still trying to find their feet,” he said.

UNC Senator Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan said only experience would be able to guide the Committees. She said maybe the country would learn that it doesn’t have the conventions of other Parliaments which use the Committee system, and that it needed constitutional reform “in black and white” to guide it and to say that ministers cannot be members of these Committees.

A 32-year-old land dispute involving two prominent families in Central Trinidad has finally been settled in the Privy Council.

The dispute lasted so long that one of the original attorneys in the case was former Opposition parliamentarian Simbhoonath Capildeo. When he died on August 5, 1990, the case was taken over by his son, Suren Capildeo, former UNC Senator. The dispute involved over three lots of land at Orange Field Road, Carapichaima. At the end of the case, the Law Lords ruled in favour of the Ramlal family ordering the Chaital family (substituting for Kanhai Mahase) to pay the costs of the entire case. Costs are expected to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Law Lords also remitted the case to the TT High Court for a judge to make a formal order, granting the land to the Ramlal family.

The appeal was heard before Lords Hope, Hutton, Scott, Walker and Sir Martin Nourse, who delivered the judgment. In 1971, Chanderlal Ramlal, a hardware merchant, entered into an agreement with Kanhai Mahase to buy three lots of land. Mahase reneged on the agreement and sold the lots to Jaglal, another hardware dealer. Ramlal sued for specific performance in 1974. Ramlal’s original attorney was former parliamentarian Simbhoonath Capildeo. After his death, he was replaced by his son, former UNC Senator Suren Capildeo.

The dispute over the lots of land went on for so many years that Devanand Ramlal, the son of Chanderlal Ramlal, had time to attend university, be admitted to the local bar, and subsequently appeared as Capildeo’s junior in the civil case. Devanand Ramlal is now chairman of TTEC. Clive Phelps appeared for Jaglal and Amrika Tiwary, now a High Court Judge, represented Mahase. Mahase and Jaglal lost in the TT Court of Appeal and appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. English Queen’s Counsel James Guthrie, assisted by Phelps, argued the Privy Council appeal for Jaglal. Ramlal was represented by British QC James Dingemanns, instructed by Capildeo.

The action was dismissed in the Port-of-Spain High Court by Justice Clebert Brooks on February 24, 1994, but the Court of Appeal comprising Justices Mustapha Ibrahim, Roger Hamel-Smith and Lionel Jones, allowed the appeal on May 12, 1999. In allowing the appeal, the TT Court of Appeal said Ramlal had not been guilty of the delay attributed to him, so that the sale by Mahase to Jaglal was unlawful. The Lords also found that Jaglal was aware of the 1971 agreement between Mahase and Ramlal. Sir Martin Nourse said the principal question for decision was whether, at a time when no abstract or document of title had been delivered to Ramlal, Mahase was entitled to give him a notice making the time specified for completion of the essence of the contract.

The Privy Council found that the material evidence consisted mainly of correspondence between the parties and their lawyers and referred extensively to letters of the firm of Capildeo and Capildeo. In evaluating the submissions of Queen’s Counsel for both parties, the Law Lords had to examine the differences in law and conveyancing practice in Trinidad and Tobago as opposed to that of the British system.

THE STATE’S MAIN witness in the Clint Huggins murder trial, Swarsatee “Sattie”  Maharaj, refused to take a polygraph or lie detector test offered by officers attached to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to Police Superintendent Stephen Quashie, during his cross-examination yesterday.

Quashie testified that the FBI conducted polygraph testing of witnesses in the murder investigation, and when approached Sattie declined to take the lie detector test. He also informed the court that the test is done voluntarily. Sattie had earlier testified that her former common-law husband Leslie Huggins had shot and murdered Clint Huggins with the assistance of Arnold Huggins and Junior Phillips on February 20, 1996 along the Uriah Butler Highway in the vicinity of Mt. Hope. She also testified that Leslie was supposed to collect $3 million for the murder.

The trio appeared before High Court Judge Alice Yorke-Soo Hon in the Third Assizes for the murder of Clint Huggins. Phillip is defended by Osbourne Charles SC and Christlyn Moore, Leslie is represented by Keith Scotland and Dawn Mohan, while Arnold is defended by Ian Stuart Brook. The State is represented by Wayne Rajbansie and Natasha George. During cross examination Quashie stated that he had received oral information that checks of Clint’s beeper revealed he had received a message from Sattie Maharaj on the day of his murder. He also testified that he had known that Clint had left the safe house on the Saturday night — either the 17 or 18 February 1996 — and that he was kept under surveillance at Teteron. He further stated that if Clint decided to leave protective custody there was nothing the soldiers could have done to arrest him or keep him in custody since he was not a prisoner.

Quashie also testified that on February 23, 1996 he executed a warrant to search Phillips’ home for certain items which included arms, ammunition, items of clothing and a knife. He stated that when he asked Phillips for the clothes he was wearing on February 19, he was handed a turquoise jersey, a pair of jeans and a blue and white sneakers. However he could not say if the clothes had been washed. Quashie also testified that Phillips gave a voluntary statement at the station on November 6, 1997.

At this point Charles put it to Quashie that the accused never gave him a statement on November 6. However Quashie said that he did give a statement. He also put it to him that he misrepresented the judges’ rules by refusing to let the accused read the statement over carefully, that he was bundled into a vehicle and taken to the country side for a ride and no area was pointed out as the spot where the ignition keys for the Laurel and the murder weapon was thrown. However Quashie said that everything that he had testified to was the truth. Quashie also testified that FBI Officer Leslie Wamkoo had dusted and found some fingerprints on the burnt out Laurel car in which Huggins body was found, but none of the prints matched Phillips’.

“I can understand a headline saying chaos in Bhagdad but there’s no chaos at the library,” said National Library Information Services  (NALIS) Chairman Bridget Brereton who was responding to reports that the functions at the new facility were out of control in an interview yesterday.

Brereton said that the large influx of schoolchildren at the library over the last three weeks “was expected. We saw the situation as a novelty and the publicity was deliberately generated. This is precisely and exactly what we hoped would happen,” she said. “But we expect that this would wane in the coming weeks.” However, she said that there was a need for more library staff and security personnel which NALIS has been requesting for a long time now. Currently, 24 security personnel are employed at the Port-of-Spain library. The smaller library branches, too, she said were understaffed and it was impossible to deploy personnel from these branches.

She admitted that large numbers “did put a lot of pressure on the attendants” over the past weeks but the situation was just “temporary”. Questioned about reports about students breaking windows and passing library books to others outside of the facility, Public Relations Officer Debbie Goodman said she had only “heard” reports. Brereton said she was unaware of those incidents including reports where “girls were holding down boys in the Youth Library and stealing from them”. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” she said.

There were also reports that students were stealing locker keys, disc players and school bags. She said it was the responsibility of security personnel as well as library staff to monitor the actions of students. Computer use was disallowed last week because of a reported “sick-out” by workers. Students were allowed free access of the internet and a filter system has been put in place to prohibit users from accessing pornographic sites. “We are not discouraging anyone from playing music, games or using the internet. There is a block so they can’t access porn but these filters are not 100 percent foolproof,” Brereton added.

NEWS of a possible merger by June of cash-strapped regional airlines, BWIA and Liat, has been greeted with a degree of optimism by the four trade unions which represent workers at the national air carrier. However Aviation Communication and Allied Workers Trade Union (ACAWU) president Christopher Abraham lamented that the workers continue to be left out of discussions which will impact on their future.

According to newspaper reports, the BWIA-Liat merger was discussed at a meeting of Caricom leaders in Bridgetown, Barbados on Sunday. Among those at the meeting were Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his St Vincent counterpart Dr Ralph Gonsalves. The St Vincent PM indicated that a decision had been taken to transform BWIA and Liat into one carrier to serve the Caribbean. “This is something that the unions have always advocated but it is a pity that it took so long,” Abraham told Newsday yesterday. However, the ACAWU leader said he was heartened that something positive seems to have emerged from the talks in Bridgetown. Asked if he was concerned that the merger could mean job losses for BWIA workers, Abraham replied that once there was a genuine desire to support the regional aviation industry, all parties concerned would benefit. He added that BWIA’s unions intend to seek a meeting with BWIA management and the Government to get the specifics about the proposed merger.