Appeal Court suspends ruling on sedition law

AN appellate court judge has suspended January’s ruling of the High Court which declared that sections 3 and 4 of the Sedition Act were unconstitutional.

Justice of Appeal Alice Yorke-Soo Hon issued the suspension order in the interest of justice.

She had been asked by the Attorney General to suspend the January 13 ruling of Justice Frank Seepersad who held that the law was “vague, uncertain and can lead to arbitrary application.”

In a decision on Monday, Soo Hon held that the court had the power to suspend declaratory orders in constitutional matters if the failure to do so would lead to lawlessness and eminent social disaster.

As part of the AG’s arguments for the suspension, attorneys for the State urged the court to preserve the status quo while the parties sought clarity on the constitutionality of the law which was enacted in 1920.

They cited two pending prosecutions which will likely to lead to the dismissal of those cases and well as lead to a multiplicity of legal challenges to existing law since Seepersad’s ruling bypassed the savings clause leading to judicial chaos. The savings clause in TT’s Constitution saves all existing law from challenge, including those which are incompatible with the fundamental rights guarantees.

In her decision, Soo Hon said the court had to be careful to use its power to preserve the rule of law.

She said in suspending the ruling there can be no prejudice to the late Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha secretary general Satnarine Maharaj, who died in November last year, nor could there be any to the SDMS’ media entity, Central Broadcasting Services Ltd since there was no evidence of the possibility of the laying of sedition charges against it.

Maharaj and CBSL had challenged the constitutionality of TT’s sedition laws, claiming it breached citizens’ rights to freedom of thought and expression and freedom of the press and freedom of association and assembly.

Maharaj filed the claim after police, armed with a warrant, went to CBSL’s offices for recordings of certain statements he made on his Maha Sabha Strikes Back programme on TV Jaagriti on April 15, 2019.

Maharaj had said Tobagonians were lazy and the men were rapists. He was not charged for sedition but at an Indian Arrival Day celebration he said it was inevitable.

In her ruling, Soo Hon also ordered an expedited hearing for the State’s appeal which will be heard on April 29.

Of the two prosecutions cited by the AG, one has already been dismissed while the other – that of Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr - has been adjourned pending the outcome of the appeal.

On January 27, Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle upheld an application by attorneys for Public Service Association president Watson Duke, dismissing the sedition charge against him on the basis that at the time he was facing a charge that was not a law.

Although it was argued that the charge against Duke can be reinstated if the State’s appeal is successful, the time for doing so may be outside the statutory period of a year after the alleged offence was committed.

Duke was charged in August 2019 in connection with statements he allegedly made on November 16, 2018, on planned layoffs at TSTT, TTEC and WASA.

Maharaj and CBSL were represented by attorneys Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Tacklalsingh, Stefan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan while the Attorney General was represented by attorneys Fyard Hosein, SC, Josephina Baptiste-Mohammed and Sean Julien.