State appeals Express raid ruling

THE STATE has appealed a judge’s ruling that a police raid of Express House in March 2020 was illegal and unconstitutional.

The appeal was filed on Tuesday by the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Police, and Supt Wendell Lucas of the Financial Investigations Bureau.

There are 26 areas of facts and law challenged by the State in its appeal and 36 grounds of appeal which dealt mainly with the judge’s findings on the search warrants used by the police in its raid on the media house.

In January, Justice Frank Seepersad held that the two search warrants obtained by the police for the media house in search of information which could lead them to a journalist’s source were “plainly irregular,” unlawful and unconstitutional, as they disproportionally infringed on the media house’s rights to freedom of the press.

The State intends to argue that it was wrong of the judge to make the orders that the issuance of the warrants breached the rights of One Caribbean Media – the parent company of the Express Newspapers and TV6 television station – the newspaper and Omatie Lyder, editor in chief.

It will also argue that the judge fell into error by “casting itself as an as an active participant in the proceedings with a role to ‘intervene’ to ‘fearlessly defend the Constitution’ as opposed to its neutral and well-settled role to impartially rule upon the case properly advanced by the respective parties and in doing so to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution.”

Seepersad’s orders for the State to compensate the media house by awarding vindicatory damages to all three respondents will also be challenged by the State which will argue that the threshold for making the award had not been met.

The media house contended that the warrants issued by a justice of the peace to search the premises were unconstitutional, unlawful, arbitrary, unnecessary, and disproportionate. It also said they contravened its right to freedom of the press guaranteed in the Constitution.

The raid came after the publication of an investigative piece on ACP Irwin Hackshaw's being flagged by local banks. The police seized several devices from Lyder’s office at Independence Square, Port of Spain.

Following the ruling, the Media Association (MATT) hailed it as a watershed moment for press freedom.