Privy Council to rule on bail appeals

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Justice of Appeal Nolan Bereaux -

THE Privy Council has reserved its decision on the Appeal Court’s jurisdiction to hear a challenge from the High Court on the grant of bail for murder.

In May 2023, Justices of Appeal Nolan Bereaux, Maria Wilson and Ronnie Boodoosingh delivered a split decision in an appeal brought by six police officers and another man charged with murder.

The police officers – Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman and Antonio Ramadin – have since been acquitted by a jury.

Kerros Martin is still awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his two-year-old.

Bereaux and Wilson agreed the Court of Appeal did not have the jurisdiction to hear appeals over judges’ decisions not to grant bail to murder accused. Boodoosingh, in his dissenting judgment, expressed the view that he and his Court of Appeal colleagues had the jurisdiction to entertain such appeals.

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In 2022, the seven, in separate applications, applied for bail using the landmark ruling on the ability of judges to consider bail for anyone charged with murder, which the Privy Council upheld in July 2022.

The High Court dismissed their bail applications and they appealed.

Bereaux held that neither sections 14(1), 14(2), 14(5) and section 108(c) of the Constitution nor sections 6(4) and 35 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act provided any right of appeal from the refusal of the grant of bail by the High Court.

On November 11, Lords Reed, Lloyd-Jones, Hamblen, Leggatt and Lady Simler reserved their ruling after hearing submissions from the men’s attorneys, the Director of Public Prosecution and the Law Association.

The seven are represented by a team of attorneys led by Anand Ramlogan, SC, and UK attorney Mohammud Jaamae Hafeez-Baig.

Rishi Dass, SC, leads the team for the DPP. Douglas Mendes, SC, and Peter Carter represent the Law Association.

The men’s attorneys insisted the appeal was not academic, since Martin was still before the court

Baig said the court still had the discretion to hear the appeal in the public’s interest. He also contended the right of appeal was retroactive and applied under the new amendment.

“There is no reason it couldn’t apply to the High Court’s common-law jurisdiction.”

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He insisted there was a right of appeal under the new law.