POLITICAL activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is now free to file judicial review proceedings against the State as it relates to the discontinuation of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against former Petrotrin chairman Malcolm Jones.<\/p>\n

Jones died in 2017.<\/p>\n

On two previous occasions, Maharaj was denied permission at both the High and Appeal Courts to file the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Yesterday however, the Privy Council in London, England, overturned both rulings and allowed Maharaj to file the proceedings at the local High Court.<\/p>\n

Maharaj is seeking the disclosure of two witness statements in arbitration proceedings between Petrotrin and World GTL over the failed gas-to-liquids plant.<\/p>\n

Those witness statements were what led to advice being given by British Queen\u2019s Counsel Vincent Nelson to the State to discontinue the lawsuit against Jones.<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s advice was that based on the statements, it was likely bad business had taken place but will not find that Jones was negligent. However, those statements have never been made public.<\/p>\n

Nelson was also the attorney who advised the previous People\u2019s Partnership administration that there was sufficient evidence to initiate and succeed in the claim against Jones.<\/p>\n

Petrotrin was seeking to recover close to $2 billion from Jones over the failed gas-to-liquid plant.<\/p>\n

Political factors <\/p>\n

After the lawsuit was discontinued in 2016, Maharaj made an application under the Freedom of Information Act to have the documents disclosed to him but this was denied based on the ground of confidentiality.<\/p>\n

It was following this that he filed the application for leave to file judicial review proceedings, but this was also denied by the local courts.<\/p>\n

But in delivering their ruling yesterday, the five Law Lords \u2014 Wilson, Hodge, Arden, Kitchin and Sales \u2014 all agreed that Maharaj should be allowed to file the claim.<\/p>\n

They stated that based on the evidence before the court, there was the possibility that politics may have had a role to play in the discontinuation of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

To prevent speculation, they suggested that in the interest of transparency and accountability, the State should not refuse to disclose the relevant information for the public to form its own view of what had transpired.<\/p>\n

However, they did not order that documents be released. This can only happen after the judicial review claim is filed, and if Maharaj is ultimately successful.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026It appears to the Board that as the available evidence stands at the moment, there are some grounds for thinking that the decision to abandon the claim against Mr Jones may have been influenced by political factors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is in view of the comments reportedly made by a government minister on 8 and 9 October 2015 (Maxie Cuffie), in advance of receipt of the written advice of 11 October 2015 from Mr Nelson QC, indicating that the claim against Mr Jones was likely to be abandoned; the very summary and tentative consideration given to the merits of the claim against Mr Jones in that written advice (in particular as compared to the previous detailed advices of counsel when the claim was commenced), on the basis of which Petrotrin seems to have been willing to abandon the claim without further review and the appearance of involvement of the Attorney General of taking that decision,\u201d the judgment read.<\/p>\n

Public interest<\/strong><\/p>\n

The panel pointed out that on October 8, 2015, Jones was appointed by the ruling PNM government to the Cabinet Standing Committee on Energy and that it was also on October 8 and 9 that the Minister of Communications stated the case against Jones was headed in the direction of being dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far as concerns possible benefits for the public interest of disclosure of the Charmaine Baptiste and Anthony Chan Tack statements, the Board considers that it is arguable that they are of significant weight, with a view to securing transparency and accountability in relation to relevant decisions in a number of respects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout seeking to be in any way exhaustive, the Board refers to the following possible public interest benefits of disclosure:<\/p>\n

\u201c(a) to enable the public to understand and, if appropriate, criticise decisions taken by Petrotrin in embarking on the joint venture and in entering into the guarantee which have proved to be so costly to it.<\/p>\n

\u201c(b) to enable the public to be fully informed about those matters and Mr Jones\u2019s involvement in them so that they could, if appropriate, criticise or oppose the appointment of Mr Jones to roles within government with a focus on energy matters, such as his appointment as a member of the Cabinet Standing Committee on Energy.<\/p>\n

\u201c(c) to enable the public to understand, and if appropriate criticise, the decisions to bring the civil claim against Mr Jones in the first place and then to abandon it,\u201d the judgment stated.<\/p>\n

Maharaj was represented by and Richard Clayton QC and former AG Anand Ramlogan while Petrotrin was represented by Thomas Roe QC and Dominique Martineau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POLITICAL activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is now free to file judicial review proceedings against the State as it relates to the discontinuation of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against former Petrotrin chairman Malcolm Jones. Jones died in 2017. On two previous occasions, Maharaj was denied permission at both the High and Appeal Courts to file the proceedings. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MALCOLM\u2019S GHOST – Privy Council rules for political activist”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"landscape":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"portraits":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost-300x160.jpg",300,160,true],"large":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"depicter-thumbnail":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",200,106,false],"music-lite-featured-large":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"music-lite-featured-medium":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"music-lite-featured-small":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false],"music-lite-featured-square":["http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/malcom_ghost.jpg",500,266,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"jeewan","author_link":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/author\/jeewan\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"POLITICAL activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is now free to file judicial review proceedings against the State as it relates to the discontinuation of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against former Petrotrin chairman Malcolm Jones. Jones died in 2017. On two previous occasions, Maharaj was denied permission at both the High and Appeal Courts to file the proceedings.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7649,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions\/7649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/novocommunications.net\/hott93\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}