PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
A High Court judge yesterday maintained an injunction pre-venting the arrest of embattled Trinidad and Tobago Chief Justice, Satnarine Sharma, even as she admitted that the court had been placed in a dilemma whether to lift it or not.
"I am satisfied that it is necessary for the injunction to remain," Justice Judith Jones said, noting that should it be lifted and the Chief Justice wins his case, then the damage to his reputation would have already been done.
Justice Jones earlier this month granted the injunction ex-parte to the lawyers for the Chief Justice, preventing Police Commissioner Trevor Paul, his assistant Wel-lington Virgil and any member of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service from arresting Sharma on a charge of perverting the course of public justice.
PANDAY'S SENTENCE
The charges arose from the recently-concluded trial of former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday. Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc-Nicolls had alleged that Sharma had sought to influence his decision.
Panday, 73, was sentenced to six years' imprisonment by McNicolls on charges of failing to disclose a London bank account he held during the period 1997,1998 and 1999 when he served as Prime Minister. Panday, who has
been placed on a TT$300,000 (US$50,000) bail, has since appealed the judgement.
In her 45-minute ruling, Justice Jones disagreed with most of the submissions filed by the lawyers for the police, as well as the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Carla Brown-Antoine, for lifting the injunction.
She said while the court had to take into consideration the public interest in the matter and should not restrain public authority from exercising the law in effecting arrests, the court should keep this in mind when weighing the balance of conscience.
