Supreme Court rejects second judicial review application in CMU case

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a second attempt by attorney Hugh Wildman to have the criminal charges against former Education Minister Ruel Reid and Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) President Professor Fritz Pinnock dismissed, and declared that it was firmly of the view that “the application must fail”.

Wildman had filed the first application last October — after his clients appeared in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court — seeking to quash the charges of breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act, conspiracy to defraud, misconduct in a public office at common law, and breaches of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The application then was made on the grounds that the Financial Investigations Division (FID) did not have the power to arrest and charge anyone, given that it is purely an investigative body.

Reid, his wife Sharen, their daughter Sharelle, as well as Professor Pinnock and Jamaica Labour Party Councillor Kim Brown Lawrence were arrested and charged on October 9 in relation to the corruption probe and are now out on bail.

That initial application for leave before a single judge was refused by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes in December last year. In their renewed application for leave to apply for judicial review filed on December 31, 2019, the applicants sought to have the court, among other things, declare the FID as purely an investigative body for financial crimes that has no power under law to lay charges against the applicants, and to declare that it was not empowered by law under the Financial Investigations Division Act to charge the applicants for any offence arising from any investigation it conducted.

Furthermore, the applicants sought a declaration that the police officers designated by the commissioner of police to the FID are not empowered to charge the applicants, and that the charges against them are “null and void and of no effect”.

Yesterday, in giving its reasons for the rejection, the court said Wildman — in attempting to bypass the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court, where the charges were first laid, to seek the judicial review on the grounds that it was “inappropriate to make the application before an inferior tribunal” — “was wrong”.

“That is a court created by statute,” the Supreme Court held. The court said the applicants, in so doing “had failed to make use of an alternative remedy which is still available and in many respects more appropriate, given all the circumstances of the case”.

The court further said it was of the view that the designated officers acted within their Jamaica Constabulary Force powers when they arrested and charged the applicants, as they took with them “all their powers and authority  as police officers into their assignment to work at the FID”.

“There is nothing in the FID Act that prohibits them from carrying out their normal functions as police officers,” the court stated.

Furthermore, it said the applicants had failed to establish failures to comply with the FID Act and therefore there was no basis to declare the charges null and void and of no legal effect.

“In all circumstances, the application fails because there is a viable alternative remedy, and even if this were not so, the applicants failed to establish the existence of an arguable case with a realistic prospect of success,” the ruling stated.