Trinidad Law Association files lawsuit against PM

(Trinidad Guardian) The Law Association has filed its lawsuit against Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley over his decision to reject its investigation into misconduct allegations levelled against embattled Chief Justice Ivor Archie.

The association’s legal team filed its judicial review application in the High Court Registry at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, on Thursday afternoon.

Guardian Media understands that the case was randomly assigned to Justice Vasheist Kokaram but a date for the hearing of the application for leave to pursue the case was not immediately set.

Based on the usual timeline for processing such cases, it is likely to come up for hearing, next week.

It is unlikely that the association would be denied leave as the threshold for doing so is low, with Kokaram having to decide whether it had presented a valid claim with a reasonable prospect of success.

In the lawsuit, the association is seeking a series of declarations over Rowley’s handling of the report, which recommended that he exercise his discretion under Section 137 of the Constitution to advise the President to investigate the allegations by commencing impeachment proceedings against Archie.

The declarations include that Rowley’s decision was illegal, irrational, unreasonable and was made in bad faith.

The association is also claiming that Rowley’s decision was not made in the performance of his constitutional functions in the public interest and that he took into account irrelevant considerations.

It is seeking an order quashing the decision and another compelling Rowley to reconsider it.

In the legal documents, the association’s lawyers sought to give a brief outline of the history of its involvement with the allegations against Archie as well as details of Rowley’s decision and his subsequent comments on the issue.

The association is challenging Rowley’s move to based his decision mainly on legal advice obtained from British Queen’s Counsel Howard Stevens. The association claimed that Stevens’ advice was methodologically and analytically flawed.

It also alleged that Rowley went beyond his constitutional remit by following Stevens advice, which sought to analyse whether the association had unearthed sufficient evidence against Archie in its preliminary investigation.

“The Prime Minister relied on what he perceived to be uncertainties or inadequacies in the evidence, so as to reject the appropriateness of making a reference. In so doing, however, he usurped the factfinding role of the tribunal,” the legal documents said.

The association also criticised Rowley for failing to conduct his own basic factfinding exercise as allegedly required under the Constitution.

“Instead, the Prime Minister wrongly approached his role as being one of reviewing the committee’s report to determine whether the committee established a prima facie case for a reference under section 137 and took on no responsibility of his own to make even a minimum of enquiries,” the legal documents said.