PPP/C Members of Parliament Juan Edghill and Vickram Bharrat have lost their challenge to the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to discontinue private criminal charges which they had filed against Ministers Volda Lawrence and George Norton for misconduct in public office.
In a ruling handed down yesterday, Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln said among other things that she was not persuaded by the reasons advanced by the applicants to quash the DPP’s decision. She said that the reasons proffered by Edghill and Bharrat did not “provide a basis for the court to use its sparingly exercised power to review and quash the decision of the DPP.” Accordingly, their application for the order was denied.
The PPP/C parliamentarians were also ordered to pay costs to the state in the sum of $200,000.
On April 19th, Edghill and Bharrat, through their attorney Anil Nandlall, had filed charges against the ministers, which stemmed from the controversial procurement of over $600 million in drugs and medical supplies from Trinidadian company ANSA McAL and Norton’s rental of a bond for the storage of medical supplies.