MILLIONS FOR HILAIRE

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The State has set­tled a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­sti­tu­tion­al claim brought by for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire, but the Gov­ern­ment has not dis­closed how much the agree­ment will cost tax­pay­ers.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day con­firmed the set­tle­ment deal, which was reached short­ly be­fore the mat­ter was sched­uled to go to tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds in the Port-of-Spain High Court.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Hi­laire and the State en­tered in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions that led to a res­o­lu­tion of the mat­ter.

“The par­ties ar­rived at an am­i­ca­ble set­tle­ment that se­cured their re­spec­tive in­ter­ests. The State is very pleased with the out­come,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

The agree­ment brings to an end Hi­laire’s le­gal chal­lenge to the Cab­i­net’s June 24, 2025 de­ci­sion to ad­vise Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to re­voke his ap­point­ment as Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor and ap­point for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai in his place.

The de­ci­sion came soon af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, had ac­cused Hi­laire of re­fus­ing to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s largest users of for­eign ex­change.

At the time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said Gov­ern­ment was prob­ing a prob­lem with for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty. She said the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to know where the for­eign ex­change went, who re­ceived the for­eign ex­change, why they re­ceived it, the process used to de­ter­mine who re­ceived for­eign ex­change, and how that for­eign ex­change was used or de­ployed.

How­ev­er, she said while Gov­ern­ment had ap­proached Hi­laire for in­for­ma­tion on this, those at­tempts were like “a bed of thorns or pulling teeth.” She al­so re­ferred to pos­si­ble court ac­tion by the Gov­ern­ment to com­pel the fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tor to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion.

“The Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor re­fus­es to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion,” she de­clared, adding that Hi­laire had failed to pro­vide the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al with in­for­ma­tion in 2024 and again in 2025.

In his le­gal com­plaint af­ter his dis­missal, Hi­laire had ar­gued that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his re­moval breached his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. He sought de­c­la­ra­tions that his dis­missal was un­law­ful, along with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9.8 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

His claim in­clud­ed salary and ben­e­fits he would have earned had his ap­point­ment con­tin­ued, as well as dam­ages for emo­tion­al dis­tress and al­leged vi­o­la­tions of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

How­ev­er, the amount agreed un­der yes­ter­day’s set­tle­ment re­mains con­fi­den­tial un­der the deal signed by Hi­laire’s le­gal team.

When asked about the fi­nan­cial terms yes­ter­day, Hi­laire’s at­tor­ney, Stu­art Young, SC, said the par­ties were bound by a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, Hi­laire al­so de­clined to com­ment on the set­tle­ment.

“Thanks for your ques­tion. I have noth­ing to add,” he said.

The set­tle­ment was reached be­fore the hear­ing com­menced. The tri­al was ex­pect­ed to fea­ture the cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of Hi­laire and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh.

In­stead, State at­tor­neys ap­proached Hi­laire’s le­gal team be­fore pro­ceed­ings be­gan and ul­ti­mate­ly agreed to terms un­der­stood to be favourable to the for­mer gov­er­nor.

Swarats­ingh, when con­tact­ed, said on­ly that he wished Hi­laire well.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Win­ston Dook­er­an wel­comed the out­come, ex­press­ing sat­is­fac­tion that Hi­laire had se­cured a set­tle­ment with which he was pleased.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne mean­while said the set­tle­ment was un­sur­pris­ing, giv­en the le­gal prece­dent es­tab­lished in the case in­volv­ing an­oth­er for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, Jwala Ram­bar­ran.

Ram­bar­ran was dis­missed in De­cem­ber 2015 on the ad­vice of the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion led by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He sub­se­quent­ly filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim, ar­gu­ing that his rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and a fair hear­ing had been breached.

In June 2022, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled in Ram­bar­ran’s favour, find­ing that his dis­missal was un­law­ful and that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been vi­o­lat­ed.

The court lat­er as­sessed com­pen­sa­tion at more than $7.5 mil­lion be­fore statu­to­ry de­duc­tions, re­sult­ing in ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5.47 mil­lion be­ing payable, in ad­di­tion to an ear­li­er award of $175,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages.

Al­though the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ap­pealed, the Court of Ap­peal, in Feb­ru­ary 2025, up­held the find­ings that Ram­bar­ran had been treat­ed un­fair­ly and that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been breached, while the judges dif­fered on as­pects of the com­pen­sa­tion award.

Browne said the prin­ci­ples es­tab­lished in the Ram­bar­ran case were di­rect­ly rel­e­vant to Hi­laire’s cir­cum­stances.

He not­ed that where an em­ploy­er seeks to ter­mi­nate a per­son’s ap­point­ment for cause, the al­le­ga­tions must be es­tab­lished and the in­di­vid­ual must be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond.

Point­ing to the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice, Browne said af­fect­ed per­sons are en­ti­tled to a fair process be­fore de­ci­sions im­pact­ing their em­ploy­ment and rights are made.

“If you’re fir­ing some­body and you’re fir­ing for cause, you have to show cause. And show cause means that you al­so, un­der the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice, have to give the per­son the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­but the al­le­ga­tions,” Browne said.

He ar­gued that the fail­ure to fol­low that process in Ram­bar­ran’s case re­sult­ed in the court’s rul­ing in that for­mer gov­er­nor’s favour.

Ac­cord­ing to Browne, the same le­gal prin­ci­ples would like­ly have posed sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for the State had Hi­laire’s claim pro­ceed­ed to tri­al.

“Hav­ing set the law and set a prece­dent, it would have been hard-pressed for the UNC to go to court and say that they had jus­ti­fi­ably dis­missed Dr Hi­laire. So it was al­ways a mat­ter of time. It was a ques­tion of when, not whether or if it was go­ing to hap­pen,” he said.

Browne al­so sug­gest­ed that set­tling the mat­ter may have spared the State a po­ten­tial­ly larg­er fi­nan­cial li­a­bil­i­ty.

“If they had gone to court, it could have been worse,” he said.

With the set­tle­ment, how­ev­er, there will be no ju­di­cial de­ter­mi­na­tion of Hi­laire’s con­sti­tu­tion­al claims. Un­like Ram­bar­ran’s case, which re­sult­ed in court find­ings against the State, Hi­laire’s mat­ter con­clud­ed through ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the par­ties.

Browne said the broad­er is­sue ex­tends be­yond any in­di­vid­ual Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor and speaks to the oblig­a­tion of gov­ern­ments to re­spect the le­gal rights of pub­lic of­fi­cials, re­gard­less of which ad­min­is­tra­tion is in of­fice.

He point­ed to the courts’ role in safe­guard­ing cit­i­zens’ rights when State agen­cies act un­law­ful­ly.

“The bot­tom line, that is why peo­ple go to court. Court is there to de­fend rights re­gard­less of which ad­min­is­tra­tion is in pow­er,” Browne said.