A High Court judge last week quashed a city magistrate’s decision to punish a police inspector by imprisoning him for misconduct during a trial.
In May, Inspector Prem Narine was sentenced to serve a seven-day prison term for unlawfully insulting Magistrate Rhondel Weever during a hearing.
He was, however, freed after several hours in custody as a result of his attorney, Everton Singh-Lammy moving to have the Chief Justice Roxane George review the decision. The judge ruled that the punishment of seven days was excessive and ordered that there be a “partial remission of the sentence imposed to reflect detention from the time the order of sentence was passed on the 22nd of May, 2019 to no later than 16.30 hrs” on the said day.
Narine’s attorney in June filed judicial review proceedings via a fixed date application seeking an order to quash the magistrate’s decision to punish him by having him imprisoned for seven days. The application was filed on the grounds that the decision by the magistrate was an abuse of power, in error of law, in excess of jurisdiction and malicious.
On May 22nd, Narine was testifying before Magistrate Weever in the trial of Mohammed Ali, who was charged with defrauding a businessman by impersonating minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence.
As was previously reported, during his testimony, Narine had asked to be refreshed from his statement and was allowed to do so. The police inspector then asked to be refreshed a second time but this request was denied by the magistrate. The denial resulted in a heated exchange between Narine and Magistrate Weever, who had him removed from the courtroom. He was taken into the court lockup and a charge of misconduct was subsequently filed and he was sentenced to seven days in prison.
Narine’s application for judicial review noted that he was not given the opportunity to defend the complaint or object to the warrant of commitment of conviction being issued. It states that it was only after the warrant had been served upon him that he became aware of the allegations made by the magistrate. A charge was not read to him and he was not allowed to enter a plea nor he was given an opportunity to be heard, which the application states violated his constitutional rights.
While the magistrate, who was listed as a respondent to the application, did not file an affidavit of defence, the judge was able to review the magistrate’s notes from the day in question which noted that after the second application to have his memory refreshed from the statement, Narine began speaking loudly. He was then asked to step out of the witness box and was repeatedly warned about his behaviour.
In her decision, High Court judge Damone Younge noted that while Narine’s behaviour may have warranted his removal from the court, it did not absolve the magistrate from following “procedural fairness” and giving him an opportunity to be heard before finding him guilty and sentencing him. The judge further found that Magistrate Weever acted unfairly in the issuance of the warrant. “In this court’s view, the No. 2 Respondent was required to first read the charge(s) to [the] Applicant then afford him an opportunity to answer to the charge(s) before there is a funding of guilt,” the ruling states. “The rules of natural justice mandate that the Applicant be told of the charge and be given an opportunity to answer same prior to a funding of guilt and the imposition of punishment,” it adds.
In addition to granting an order quashing the magistrate’s decision, the court also awarded costs to Narine in the sum of $30,000
