Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alivin Hi­laire have stat­ed that they are anx­ious for his law­suit over his ter­mi­na­tion to go to tri­al. 

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who is lead­ing Dr Hi­laire’s le­gal team, ex­pressed the po­si­tion dur­ing the first case man­age­ment con­fer­ence be­fore Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

Young said: “We are anx­ious to have a date for the tri­al of the mat­ter.” `

Young al­so ques­tioned whether the State planned to con­cede li­a­bil­i­ty in the case based on its pre­lim­i­nary ev­i­den­tial fil­ings. 

“This is a mat­ter with very lit­tle dis­pute on the ev­i­dence and very lit­tle room to go on li­a­bil­i­ty,” Young said. 

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, who is rep­re­sent­ing the Cab­i­net and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, said that he was not pre­pared to make any con­ces­sion in the case at a pre­lim­i­nary stage. 

He al­so sug­gest­ed that Hi­laire’s case should not be giv­en pri­or­i­ty. 

“This is not the first time a gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank has been fired. The point is the same lev­el of ex­pe­di­en­cy that the sys­tem treats all the oth­er mat­ters should ap­ply,” Ram­lo­gan, who rep­re­sent­ed Dr Hi­laire’s pre­de­ces­sor Jwala Ram­bar­ran when his con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed in 2015, said. 

Young clar­i­fied that he was not re­quest­ing that the case be pri­ori­tised over oth­ers filed be­fore it.

“I was nev­er sug­gest­ing any­one pole-vault any mat­ters. Ju­di­cial re­view claims are sup­posed to be dealt with ex­pe­di­tious­ly,” he said. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, who co­in­ci­den­tal­ly presided over Ram­bar­ran’s case and up­held it, said he could not set a tri­al date un­til the par­ties com­plete their fil­ings.

He re­vealed that a tri­al this year was not pos­si­ble. 

“At present, it is an ug­ly cal­en­dar I have. I don’t have tri­al dates un­til Feb­ru­ary or March, next year,” he said. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad set dead­lines for the par­ties to file their re­main­ing ev­i­dence and ad­journed the case to April 15. 

Dr Hi­laire was ap­point­ed to re­place Ram­bar­ran in De­cem­ber 2015, and his con­tract, which was due to ex­pire in De­cem­ber 2026, was ter­mi­nat­ed in June, last year. 

In ter­mi­nat­ing Dr Hi­laire, the Gov­ern­ment ac­cused him of breach­ing sec­tion 12 (e) of the Cen­tral Bank Act (that is that he was guilty of mis­con­duct in re­la­tion to his du­ties) and sec­tion 12 (g) of the Act (that he failed to car­ry out of the du­ties and func­tions con­ferred or im­posed on him un­der the Cen­tral Bank Act).

In his law­suit, Dr Hi­laire claimed that on June 24, Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, vis­it­ed his of­fice at the Cen­tral Bank to press for his res­ig­na­tion.

He claimed that Swarats­ingh told him that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was dis­sat­is­fied with his re­fusal to al­low the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to au­dit the Cen­tral Bank’s ac­counts, call­ing it “the last straw.”

Dr Hi­laire re­port­ed­ly re­spond­ed by stat­ing that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al had ceased to be the Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­di­tor in 2024 at her own re­quest, but that he had met with her and in­di­cat­ed that her of­fice could re­view any spe­cif­ic dis­crep­an­cies re­lat­ed to T&T’s fis­cal ac­counts.

Dr Hi­laire claimed that Swarats­ingh al­so raised con­cerns about the ap­point­ment of BDO Trinidad and To­ba­go as the Cen­tral Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­di­tor, sug­gest­ing that the firm had links to a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter’s rel­a­tive.

Dr Hi­laire re­port­ed­ly clar­i­fied that BDO was se­lect­ed af­ter a com­pet­i­tive and in­de­pen­dent pro­cure­ment process, ful­ly aligned with Cen­tral Bank pol­i­cy, and that there was no on­go­ing con­nec­tion be­tween BDO and Young’s broth­er An­gus, who end­ed his em­ploy­ment with the firm in 2014.

He claimed that Swarats­ingh made it clear the new ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tend­ed to in­stall “their own per­sons” in key in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the Cen­tral Bank.

He claimed that he was told that a re­place­ment had al­ready been se­lect­ed and would be ap­point­ed lat­er that same day, re­gard­less of whether or not he re­signed.

Dr Hi­laire claimed that he asked for time to seek le­gal ad­vice but Swarats­ingh in­sist­ed he make a de­ci­sion im­me­di­ate­ly, stat­ing that fail­ure to re­sign would re­sult in the re­vo­ca­tion of his ap­point­ment.

Lat­er that af­ter­noon, the min­is­ter al­leged­ly re­turned to Dr Hi­laire’s of­fice with a let­ter signed by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, stat­ing that up­on his res­ig­na­tion, he would re­ceive a full pay­out “as soon as pos­si­ble.”

Through the law­suit, Dr Hi­laire is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over his ter­mi­na­tion and ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9.8 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. 

The com­pen­sa­tion sought is based on the salary and ben­e­fits he would have re­ceived had his con­tract not been ter­mi­nat­ed, as well as dam­ages for emo­tion­al dis­tress and breach of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. 

Ram­bar­ran was ap­point­ed Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor in Ju­ly 2012, and his con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed by Cab­i­net on the ad­vice of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in De­cem­ber 2015. 

The de­ci­sion came short­ly af­ter Ram­bar­ran an­nounced that T&T was in a re­ces­sion and af­ter he re­vealed the biggest for­eign ex­change users in the coun­try.

In up­hold­ing Ram­bar­ran’s case in 2022, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered over $5.47 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

Last year the Court of Ap­peal up­held Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s rul­ing on li­a­bil­i­ty but slight­ly re­duced the com­pen­sa­tion award­ed.