Diego Martin family to receive $1 million over landmark bail case

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

The fam­i­ly of Diego Mar­tin man Ak­ili Charles will re­ceive just over $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion fol­low­ing a land­mark le­gal chal­lenge that al­lowed bail to be con­sid­ered for mur­der charges.

Charles, who was mur­dered days af­ter his con­sti­tu­tion­al vic­to­ry near­ly four years ago, suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged a blan­ket pro­hi­bi­tion pre­vent­ing judges from grant­i­ng bail to those ac­cused of mur­der.

The Court of Ap­peal and the Privy Coun­cil up­held his case in 2022.

The High Court as­sess­ment by Mas­ter Sher­lanne Pierre last week cal­cu­lat­ed com­pen­sa­tion large­ly based on the eight-and-a-half years Charles spent on re­mand. She or­dered $700,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages, $450,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages, and le­gal costs.

Charles’ fam­i­ly will ben­e­fit from the award, with his moth­er, Meli­na, con­tin­u­ing the lit­i­ga­tion on be­half of his es­tate.

Charles and five oth­ers had been charged with the 2010 mur­der of Rus­sell An­toine, who was shot in Diego Mar­tin, along with two oth­er vic­tims wound­ed in the same in­ci­dent. Af­ter a pro­tract­ed in­quiry, all six men were freed when the court found the State had in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

Mas­ter Pierre cit­ed the in­hu­mane con­di­tions Charles en­dured in cus­tody, in­clud­ing cramped cells, and poor ven­ti­la­tion and san­i­ta­tion. She ruled that each day of his de­ten­tion with­out the right to ap­ply for bail rep­re­sent­ed a con­tin­ued breach of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The case, filed by Free­dom Law Cham­bers led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, ini­tial­ly faced re­jec­tion in the High Court be­fore be­ing up­held by a three-mem­ber ap­peal pan­el led by for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. The Privy Coun­cil lat­er con­firmed the prece­dent, with Lord Nicholas Ham­blen not­ing the Bail Act of 1994 did not jus­ti­fy re­strict­ing cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

“That is vivid­ly il­lus­trat­ed by the facts of the present case in which it was ul­ti­mate­ly found that the re­spon­dent had no case to an­swer—in the mean­while he spent near­ly eight and a half years in cus­tody,” Lord Ham­blen said.

Oth­er lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Charles in­clud­ed Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al, Ganesh Sa­roop, Vishaal Siewsaran, and Natasha Bis­ram. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Nicol Yee Fung, Sharon Raghu­nath, Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj, and Vin­cent Jar­dine.