By ANDRE BAGOO Wednesday, September 9 2009

click on pic to zoom in

Israel Khan ...

THERE IS precedent in Trinidad and Tobago for a Government tabling an act of Parliament to retrospectively cure defective proceedings, lawyers said yesterday.

Back in 1980, a legal crisis emerged when it was realised that the Narcotics Act, which was one of the first pieces of legislation passed in this country to combat the drug trade, had been implemented without being proclaimed.

Persons had been charged under the Act and even fined when it was then realised that the legislation was not in effect as it had not been proclaimed.

Then Attorney General, Senator Selwyn Richardson, under Prime Minister Eric Williams, in Parliament in June, 1980, had to announce that the new law may have been illegal because it was not proclaimed.

At the time there was an ongoing case in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court in which two men were charged and fined under the act.

Lawyers in the case, including Israel Khan (not yet senior counsel), argued that the proceedings were illegal because the law had not been proclaimed. Khan also argued that it was against the rule of law and natural justice for the law to be changed to make the criminal offences valid retrospectively.

However an act was later passed with a special Constitutional majority making the proceedings valid.

In the wake of the emergence of an apparent legal defect in the Uff Commission of Inquiry, there have been calls for the Government to table a validating act. The act would deal with the issue of the fact that the proceedings of the Uff inquiry have not been gazetted, an issue which some argue is fatal to the inquiry’s legality.

Yesterday Khan, who was involved in the 1980 case, and who is a former member of the Uff commission, said someone should be held accountable for the procedural blunder of the non- gazetting of the proceedings, which has been described by Attorney General John Jeremie as “embarrassing”.

“I believe heads should roll for this faux pas,” Khan said. “Strictly speaking it was really the responsibility of the then Attorney General Bridgid Annisette-George to ensure that the appointment of the commissioners was gazetted. But ultimately the Government will be held accountable for this faux pas.”

Annisette-George yesterday said she was out of the country, and could not take calls on the issue.

Yesterday Khan recalled the controversy over the 1980 Narcotic Act.

“This happened once with the Narcotic Act, which was not proclaimed. It was not law and many people went to jail, served sentences and the PNM government enacted retrospective legislation to fix that,” he said. “This is a huge embarrassment to the Ministry of the Attorney General and by extension the Government. An Attorney General must always be vigilant. A slack approach to the oversight of this ministry could cause huge embarrassment as it did in this instance.”