Courts closed, so October trial for 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 to wait a little longer for his 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 for the trial to 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.

At Monday’s hearing, Ramsumair-Hinds said Ramgobin trial required at least one or two witnesses to give evidence in person. She said while she was disheartened that the latest practice directions – which prohibits in-person hearings and jury trials – ran until September 30, she understood why it must be so.

“I will keep it (the trial) as ready as I can… And we can hybridise it at the right time,” she said of the trial, before adjourning it to October 6.

At a sitting in January, Chote had submitted that the Chief Justice’s covid19 emergency practice directions, which banned 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.

She also pointed out that the Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2020 and the 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 former piece of legislation was read and passed in both Houses of Parliament earlier this year, and is awaiting the assent of the President. It will allow for the use of different identification procedures, interviews and oral admissions, and evidence by video link.

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

Representing the prosecution are state attorneys Anju Bhola and Sophia Sandy-Smith.