Judge agrees to partial in-person trial for ex-cop on corruption charges

A FORMER police officer who was charged in 2006 on three corruption charges relating to taking a $3,000 bribe, will have a hybrid judge-alone trial.

Rajesh Ramgobin is before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds on the charges.

In September last year, he opted for a judge-alone trial but his attorneys Sophia Chote, SC, and Peter Carter raised a legal challenge to the court’s authority to hear the trial electronically.

A similar challenge was raised by the prosecution which asked that the trial be held in court so that the main witness can be questioned in person as it is suspected he will turn hostile, and because of exhibits which are expected to be tendered into evidence.

Chote had submitted that the Chief Justice’s covid19 emergency practice directions, which put a ban in in-person hearings, and legislation on taking evidence by video link in criminal trials, at the time, had not been passed in Parliament and proclaimed, as the bill had lapsed.

Chote said no emergency legislation was enacted and assented to that would allow the practice directions to override protections afforded to citizens under the Constitution and in specific legislation.

She said rules of the court, such as the practice directions, can be treated as delegated legislation, but the emergency covid19 practice directions did not have the same status in law. While the Evidence Act, she argued, permitted the rules committee to provide rules for criminal cases, no power was specifically delegated to the Chief Justice to give directions on how the court should take evidence.

In ruling on the submissions, Ramsumair-Hinds held that the court did have jurisdiction to direct or receive evidence by audio or video link.

“In addition to and consequent upon the court’s inherent jurisdiction to control its own procedures, well prior to the 2020 Practice Directions, the criminal courts have been mandated to promote the use of technology in advancing the overriding objective of the Criminal Procedure Rules, namely that criminal cases be dealt with justly,” she pointed out.

Citing several English cases, she said she was supported in her view that the court had an inherent jurisdiction to assist an accused to give his best quality evidence.

She also pointed out that the Evidence (Amendment)Bill 2020 was currently before the Senate and the recently proclaimed Miscellaneous Provisions (Administration of Justice) Act, 2020, addressed Chote’s concerns for statutory underpinning of the practice directions to allow audio and video link evidence.

The latter suite of legislation gave the CJ the power to issue directions for civil and criminal trials by audio and video link.

“It might appear that Parliament’s intervention resolves Senior Counsel’s argument that this court was (at the time of filing of her submissions) without jurisdiction to receive evidence by audio and/or video link.

“While it is convenient that no more judicial time need be spent on such a challenge, I am of the firm view that courts in the Criminal Division cannot be said to have had a blanket restriction from receiving or prescribing the taking of such evidence simply because there is/was no statutory underpinning, especially when one considers the ambit of the court’s inherent jurisdiction,” Ramsumair-Hinds said.

In response to the State’s application for a complete in-person trial, she refused the application, pointing out that before the coronavirus pandemic a witness was allowed to give evidence electronically in a murder trial.

She also ruled that Ramgobin’s trial will include the taking of evidence in-person as well as by electronic means.

Attorneys for both sides have until February 15 to let the court know which witness will give evidence in-person and who can give evidence virtually from the Judiciary’s virtual access centre at King’s Court, Frederick Street, Port of Spain.

“Certainly, there are cases in which evidence by video link may not be appropriate. As it relates to this matter, I agree with both sides that there are exceptional circumstances that may warrant the need for in-person hearings, though not for all witnesses,” she held.

Senior prosecutor Anju Bhola is representing the State.