Following a no-case submission that was made on behalf of former Ministry of the Presidency Permanent Secretary Omar Shariff and his wife, who are accused of failing to comply with a court order, the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) prosecutor argued that the duo ought to be called upon to lead a defence to the charge.
Shariff and his wife, Savitri Hardeo, both of Dowding Street, Kitty, are on trial before Senior Magistrate Fabayo Azore for allegedly failing to comply with a production order issued by then acting Chief Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards in October, 2016.
Their attorney, Sanjeev Datadin, has made a no-case submission, arguing that the magistrate’s court has no jurisdiction to hear the matter since the order was issued by the High Court. He further stated that there was no evidence that there was a breach of an order before the court, since no documents to support same have been produced.
Datadin further argued that the court has no evidence as to if there is compliance or not on the part of his clients as the boxes of documents were not produced; that failure on the part of the prosecution to produce documents supplied by the defendants “is fatal to the offence charged” and/or a breach of the chain of custody; and that the prosecution has not proven reasonable cause.
Henry recently provided a written submission to the court in response to the attorney’s no-case submission.
In the response, which was viewed by this publication, Henry addressed the point made by Datadin that the court has no jurisdiction to hear the matter.
“It is trite law that a Summary Conviction Offence proceeding commence in the Magistrate’s Court. Further, Magis-trates derive their jurisdiction by statute,” he stated, before making reference to Section 2 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offe-nces) Act, which highlights that “Summary conviction Offences” means any offense punishable on summary conviction before the court.
The court, according to Henry’s submission, means a Magistrate’s Court acting in the exercise of its jurisdiction in respect of summary conviction offenses.
Addressing the issue that there is no evidence that the Order is in breach, it was argued that the admission of the defendants, the evidence of SOCU witnesses and the acceptance of what occurred after the date listed in the order all point to sufficient evidence of breach and/or noncompliance of the court order.
In addressing the argument made by Datadin that no documents were produced to the court, the SOCU prosecutor argued that they had no duty to produce the documents, even if they were filed within the stipulated period.
Henry, in his submission, highlighted the fact that the court ordered that documents be produced on October 6th, 2016 to SOCU head Sydney James and none were filed by October 14th, 2016, and therefore the prosecution could not produce what was not supplied.
As for not having proven reasonable cause and the court being unable to “infer an element of the offence,” Henry stated:
“The offence, as charged under Section 26 of Chapter 10:11, sets out that where a person is required by a Production Order to produce a document to a Police Officer, the person commits an offence if he (a) contravenes the Order without reasonable cause.”
“This section presupposed that the person who has not complied must raise as a defence reasonable cause. This reverse burden includes efforts of compliance, intervention by the High Court by Orders varying the time to comply, among other things,” he further stated, before adding that “The Prosecution has negated any attempts aforementioned, and the lack of effort and/or noncompliance by the defendants clearly has demonstrated the offence being proven “prima facie” without reasonable cause.”
Prosecutor Henry closed his response by stating that a prima facie case has been made out against the accused and that they ought to be called upon to lead their defense.
The matter was later adjourned until October 30th, when a ruling is expected to be made on whether a case has been made out against the defendants and if they are required to lead a defence to the charge.
