Daly Bread: Gopaul v Seepaul—T&T needs effective consequence management

Recently, the Attorney General, Senator John Jeremie SC, announced that the State had decided to discontinue an appeal against a High Court judgment in which the Court condemned the forcible retrieval of a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago from Barbados, by Trinidad and Tobago law enforcement, in circumstances where he allegedly was the subject of a criminal investigation.

Last week, there was another decision in which the Court delivered a strongly worded condemnation of the arbitrary treatment of citizens. I refer to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in which it condemned the refusal of the State to permit two citizens to re-enter Trinidad and Tobago, when the borders were closed during the Covid pandemic.

It may never come to light from a verifiable source how many other citizens were permitted to return during the lock down period—some reportedly to return and leave again after Christmas or other vacations, family or social events.

There is apparently reference in the legal proceedings to a list of persons who came in to Trinidad and Tobago despite the closure of the borders. Somebody needs to bus’ that mark.

In the 23 years of writing this column, I have generally avoided mentioning unpleasant personal experiences of my own with government agencies and things told to me in conversation unless I have the express consent of the other person. This week I am making two exceptions.

The first exception relates to learning first hand of the ease with which a parent received approval to bring a family member back to Trinidad and Tobago despite the closed borders.

What was said was that when the parent wanted to have a family member return “we called X”, casually identifying a high-profile minister of the then government.

Secondly, I did write once about my sobering experience of being mis-leadingly encouraged to obtain approval for placement of my book, the Daly Commentaries published in 2015, in school libraries only to be told that the Education Division had no money “for the purchase of resources for the schools”.

This happened after I was directed to an office in Chaguanas where I was interviewed and left two copies of the book for vetting and the book passed review.

More recently, in January this year, I launched Volume 2 of the Daly Commentaries—but I did not even get in the door at the National Library and Information System Authority (Nalis) in order to leave a mere two copies of the book for the National Library.

Before the book launch, I tried to arrange a visit to Nalis to leave the two copies.  The visit never took place.

After my initial approach and an exchange of emails, I received an apology for the delay in dealing with my initial request that was made in November, 2024 together with the following response: “regarding a date for the presentation of the books, one would be fixed upon the executive director’s return from vacation leave.”

I noted that the emails were the output of the Public Relations and Marketing departments of Nalis. As a result, although I never heard another word, I declined to follow up because I was not interested in a Nalis posturing exercise for the media, similar to those I observed while I was awaiting word as to when my simple request could be accommodated.

Moreover, this was all very different from when I participated at Nalis along with other authors in the first time authors’ program on the occasion of the publication of Volume 1 of my commentaries.

We all know that Gopaul luck is not Seepaul luck. The discourtesy of Nalis did not infringe any fundamental rights of mine and my commentaries continue to be well received.

But what about the huge sums of our money the state is having to pay by way of damages and legal costs for administrative and legal bungling and just sheer “bad mind”? Do power plays sometimes grow out of the indifference of public officials to courtesy?

Moreover, when will there be effective consequence management, that is effective dealing with the blatant perverters of fundamental rights in response to the transgressions so roundly condemned by the Court?

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.