Hadeeds lose bid to fast-track lawsuit

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve have lost their ini­tial at­tempt to have their con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit against the Gov­ern­ment ex­pe­dit­ed.

High Court Judge Vigel Paul dis­missed the cou­ple’s ap­pli­ca­tion, which was large­ly based on claims that Hadeed’s health was de­te­ri­o­rat­ing while he and his wife re­main de­tained in prison over an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The cou­ple’s lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, ar­gued that the mat­ter re­quired ur­gent hear­ing be­cause of Hadeed’s med­ical con­di­tion. How­ev­er, Jus­tice Paul up­held ob­jec­tions from at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen over ev­i­dence pro­vid­ed by Hadeed’s doc­tor, Jacque­line Pereira-Sab­ga.

Jus­tice Paul said the lawyers failed to ap­ply for Pereira-Sab­ga to be recog­nised as an ex­pert wit­ness who could pro­vide ev­i­dence on Hadeed’s med­ical con­di­tion, treat­ment re­quire­ments and the im­pact of his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion.

"Noth­ing pre­vent­ed them from mak­ing a com­pos­ite ap­pli­ca­tion. Such would have placed both mat­ters be­fore the court and avoid de­lay," Jus­tice Paul said.

The judge al­so con­sid­ered that High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad had pre­vi­ous­ly re­fused to or­der the cou­ple’s re­lease while their sub­stan­tive case was be­ing de­ter­mined. That de­ci­sion is cur­rent­ly un­der ap­peal.

"It would not be ap­pro­pri­ate for this court to form a view over some­thing now be­fore the Court of Ap­peal," Jus­tice Paul said.

"There must be a suf­fi­cient ba­sis for ex­cep­tion­al treat­ment. I am not sat­is­fied that the case for ur­gent di­rec­tions has been made out," he added.

Mendes asked Jus­tice Paul to ad­journ the mat­ter un­til to­mor­row to al­low him time to file an ap­pli­ca­tion re­gard­ing Pereira-Sab­ga’s ex­pert ev­i­dence.

"Jus­tice is not done by tak­ing these tech­ni­cal points. You must main­tain the ac­cess to this court so an ap­pli­ca­tion that could po­ten­tial­ly save his life could be made," Mendes said.

Jus­tice Paul said Mendes re­mained free to file the ap­pli­ca­tion but said his de­ci­sion was based on sev­er­al oth­er fac­tors.

Mendes lat­er ac­cused Ramdeen of at­tempt­ing to de­lay the mat­ter un­til the State of Emer­gency ends in Sep­tem­ber, ar­gu­ing that the de­lay could pre­vent the pos­si­bil­i­ty of his clients be­ing re­leased.

"The State is us­ing the rules against my client to keep them in de­ten­tion. You (Jus­tice Paul) have to con­front it. He (Ramdeen) is re­sist­ing be­cause he is run­ning down the clock," Mendes said.

Ramdeen de­nied any wrong­do­ing and said he was be­ing blamed for prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

"Mr Do­minic Hadeed finds him­self in the po­si­tion he finds him­self in sole­ly be­cause of his lawyers," Ramdeen said.

How­ev­er, Ramdeen agreed to a case man­age­ment con­fer­ence be­ing held next Fri­day and said he would file ap­pli­ca­tions seek­ing to strike out some of the claims made by the cou­ple.

The Hadeeds and 69-year-old rel­a­tive Star Sab­ga were de­tained two weeks ago af­ter po­lice ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at their homes and of­fices.

The war­rants in­di­cat­ed that po­lice were in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der. Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der stat­ed that the three were be­ing de­tained over an al­leged plot to mur­der Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and MPs.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­leged­ly stemmed from in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by an uniden­ti­fied na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad pre­vi­ous­ly re­fused the cou­ple’s in­ter­im re­lease but grant­ed them leave to pur­sue their sub­stan­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge.

"It is es­sen­tial to dis­tin­guish that even if their ar­rests and de­ten­tions were in­valid, such does not im­pact the de­ci­sion of the min­is­ter to is­sue the PDOs," Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the con­di­tions the cou­ple had ex­pe­ri­enced in prison, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said they could be com­pen­sat­ed through dam­ages if they ul­ti­mate­ly suc­ceed­ed in their le­gal chal­lenge.

"While the court ap­pre­ci­ates the dis­tress from de­ten­tion, it does hold the view that there may be greater harm if they are re­leased and the in­tel­li­gence up­on which the po­lice and min­is­ter act­ed proves to be true," he said.

The Hadeeds have ap­pealed Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s rul­ing, claim­ing he made more than a dozen er­rors in his de­ci­sion.

In their sub­stan­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge, the cou­ple ar­gued that their de­ten­tion un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions dur­ing the State of Emer­gency was un­law­ful. They al­so chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency, claim­ing it tar­get­ed mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty and Hadeed per­son­al­ly.

Their lawyers re­lied heav­i­ly on com­ments made by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the State of Emer­gency ex­ten­sion, in which he re­ferred to mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty as "the one per cent" and ac­cused them of fi­nanc­ing the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and ben­e­fit­ing from State land.

The Hadeeds ar­gued that Je­re­mie’s com­ments re­ferred di­rect­ly to Hadeed af­ter he crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in March and af­ter Cab­i­net moved to ter­mi­nate leas­es to State land held by his com­pa­ny in May.

They al­so ref­er­enced a let­ter from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice in­form­ing Hadeed that po­lice were in­ves­ti­gat­ing the grant­i­ng of those leas­es.

The cou­ple ar­gued that the PDOs were is­sued based on in­tel­li­gence al­leged­ly gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency through in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, one day af­ter Hadeed threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over the ter­mi­nat­ed leas­es.

"The is­suance of de­ten­tion or­ders by the Min­is­ter there­fore ap­pear to have been part of a pre­de­ter­mined plan by the Gov­ern­ment against the First Claimant on the ba­sis of his ad­verse com­men­tary about the Gov­ern­ment, and/or his race, and/or his per­ceived po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, and/or his per­ceived sup­port for the op­po­si­tion and/or his per­ceived wrong­do­ing in re­spect of hav­ing ob­tained leas­es for State lands," their lawyers said.

They fur­ther ar­gued that their fi­nan­cial means and in­flu­ence were used as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for de­ten­tion de­spite no pre­vi­ous al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The Hadeeds main­tained that there was no ev­i­dence of any plot to mur­der any­one and ac­cused the au­thor­i­ties of act­ing in bad faith.

Through the law­suit, the cou­ple is seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions on the le­gal­i­ty of the State of Emer­gency ex­ten­sion and their de­ten­tion un­der PDOs. They are al­so seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for al­leged breach­es of more than a dozen con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The Hadeeds are rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus and Car­lon Mc Leod.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice has re­tained British King’s Coun­sel Sir James Ead­ie and Robert Strang, along­side Ramdeen and at­tor­ney Dayadai Har­ri­paul, to rep­re­sent the State.