Man sues State after being locked up for 9 months over wrong records

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

A Ma­yaro man spent more than nine months in prison be­cause of a mis­tak­en crim­i­nal record. Now he is su­ing the State over what his lawyers de­scribe as a break­down in the jus­tice sys­tem.

Ras Carang Ma­son, rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on Mon­day, ar­gu­ing that an ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror led to his pro­longed de­ten­tion on re­mand.

Ac­cord­ing to court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ma­son was ar­rest­ed in No­vem­ber 2019 and charged with rob­bery with vi­o­lence, pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, and rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion. He spent five days in a po­lice sta­tion be­fore his first court ap­pear­ance.

His crim­i­nal record trac­ing, gen­er­at­ed af­ter his fin­ger­prints were scanned, showed a pend­ing firearm mat­ter. Ma­son and his le­gal team said that record was wrong.

Be­cause of that record, Ma­son was de­nied bail un­der the Bail (Amend­ment) Act 2019, which bars bail for ac­cused per­sons with pend­ing firearm charges.

He re­mained on re­mand for nine and a half months be­fore a High Court Mas­ter grant­ed him bail af­ter au­thor­i­ties ac­knowl­edged the er­ror.

His at­tor­neys, Dou­glas Bay­ley and Frank Git­tens, said he would have qual­i­fied for bail from the start if the mis­take had not oc­curred.

"As a re­sult of the State's con­duct, the Claimant had to en­dure the no­to­ri­ous­ly harsh con­di­tions of the Gold­en Grove Prison," they said.

They said he was kept in over­crowd­ed, un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and suf­fered “hu­mil­i­a­tion, dis­tress, and dis­com­fort” dur­ing his de­ten­tion.

They al­so al­leged that dur­ing un­rest at the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, prison of­fi­cers beat Ma­son even though he was not in­volved.

His le­gal team ar­gued that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached, in­clud­ing his right to lib­er­ty, pro­tec­tion of the law, and ac­cess to rea­son­able bail.

"To de­ny the Claimant his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to ac­cess rea­son­able bail be­cause of an ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror is the ab­solute an­tithe­sis of the pro­tec­tion against ir­ra­tional­i­ty, un­rea­son­able­ness, fun­da­men­tal un­fair­ness, or the ar­bi­trary ex­er­cise of pow­er," they said.

"The fail­ure of State of­fi­cials to cor­rect the er­ror de­spite re­peat­ed hear­ings and ad­journ­ments rep­re­sents an egre­gious dere­lic­tion of du­ty, amount­ing to ad­min­is­tra­tive ar­bi­trari­ness square­ly with­in the scope of the con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tee of pro­tec­tion of the law," they added.

The law­suit al­so chal­lenges the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Bail (Amend­ment) Act, ar­gu­ing that it un­der­mines the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

"It de­prives the court of its ju­ris­dic­tion to con­sid­er an ap­pli­ca­tion for bail and to grant or de­ny bail af­ter con­sid­er­a­tion of the par­tic­u­lar facts and cir­cum­stances of the case," they said.

Ma­son is seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions and com­pen­sa­tion for his de­ten­tion.

In an af­fi­davit, he de­scribed the fi­nan­cial fall­out, in­clud­ing los­ing his job as a jan­i­tor and be­ing un­able to sup­port his twin daugh­ters, who were two years old at the time.

"I al­so lost my mo­tor ve­hi­cle due to miss­ing my in­stal­ment pay­ments, and in or­der to ac­cu­mu­late funds to pro­vide for my daugh­ters, my moth­er was forced to sell my live­stock, which I reared be­fore by in­car­cer­a­tion."

High Court Judge Karen Reid is ex­pect­ed to hear the mat­ter on May 25.