PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Lawyers representing the Auditor General, Jaiwantie Ramdass, have filed an appeal against a High Court ruling on Monday that denied her permission to pursue a lawsuit over an ongoing probe into a recent impasse between her office and the Ministry of Finance.
The attorneys, led by former attorney general Anand Ramlogan SC, are also seeking an expedited hearing. Media reports said that Justice Peter Rajkumar will hear the matter in chambers at the earliest available date.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced last month that Justice David Harris had been appointed chair of a team that will investigate the understatement of Trinidad and Tobago government revenue for the financial year 2023.
The Ministry of Finance statement said the Cabinet had given the green light for the probe and that the investigation team will include David C. Benjamin, a former Audit Director at the Auditor General’s Department, and Information Technology specialists.
The team will be requested to report to the Minister of Finance within two months.
Justice Westmin James ruled on Monday that the finance minister “used a discretionary power to recommend an investigation.”
He noted that the parties could agree “that there was a serious matter of public importance that required investigation and that choice fell within the discretion assigned to him by the Constitution.”
Justice James said the minister had to choose among “doing nothing, carrying out the necessary investigations himself or recommending another body to carry out the investigation.
“The Minister, in making his choice at the time, was not performing an adjudicative function in which he was acting as a sort of judge,” the judge said, noting that Imbert was not “determining the applicant’s rights and liabilities, nor was the Minister making findings of fact in doing so and even if he made such preliminary determinations, it was not binding on the investigations.”
In his ruling, the judge also noted that “this investigation presents an opportunity to establish the facts of this serious matter, highlighted and brought to the public’s attention which is of significant public interest.
“It provides a chance for all parties to be heard, to document their positions, and to determine the best way forward formally.”
In a statement following the ruling, Imbert said, “As a result of the Court’s decision to refuse to leave for Judicial Review, the associated pending application for an injunction was rendered nugatory.”
However, in their appeal, the lawyers listed 14 grounds for the appeal, including that the judge erred in finding that the investigation was permissible and did not amount to an unjustified and unlawful interference with the constitutional independence of the Office of the Auditor General.
They said that the judge also erred in adopting such a narrow approach to the concept and principles of fairness and natural justice that he failed to appreciate that it would also apply to and cover the process of establishing/appointing/setting up the investigation itself.
“The court compounded this error by focusing on the minister’s recommendation to the Cabinet in isolation without reference to the relief claimed, and the grounds pleaded, which focused on the illegality of the action and decision of both respondents (Imbert and the Cabinet) in establishing/appointing/setting up this investigation against the backdrop of the peculiar facts of this case which raised a strong case of bias,” the attorneys added.
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