DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has been giv­en 42 days in which to re­con­sid­er a re­quest to dis­close in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to a probe in­to the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion of a pre­scrip­tion drug that caused eight cit­i­zens to go blind af­ter it was ad­min­is­tered.

Ap­pel­late Judges Prakash Moo­sai, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mour­er, and Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well made the or­der on Mon­day as they up­held an ap­peal from po­lit­i­cal and so­cial ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj over the par­tial dis­missal of his law­suit chal­leng­ing the min­istry’s re­fusal to dis­close some of the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion.

In set­ting the dead­line, Jus­tice Dean-Ar­mour­er sought to high­light the sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est in the case.

“The facts in­volved in this case are dev­as­tat­ing for per­sons who may have lost their vi­sion and their fam­i­lies. Giv­ing di­rec­tions as to time is crit­i­cal,” she said.

Ma­haraj made the dis­clo­sure re­quest un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) months af­ter the min­istry is­sued a press re­lease in re­la­tion to the re­call of the drug N-Cort (Tri­am­ci­nolone Ace­tonide In­jec­tion BP) in Ju­ly 2019.

Ad­vis­ing that the drug was re­called due to pos­si­ble bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tion, the min­istry ad­mit­ted that it was not reg­is­tered in T&T and was brought in­to the coun­try through il­le­git­i­mate im­port chan­nels.

It stat­ed that its Chem­istry, Food, and Drugs Di­vi­sion had al­ready seized stocks from the sup­pli­er and called on phar­ma­cies and med­ical sup­ply com­pa­nies to im­me­di­ate­ly cease sell­ing stock they had al­ready se­cured.

It al­so warned cit­i­zens to re­frain from us­ing it.

Ma­haraj claimed that he was con­tact­ed by sev­er­al rep­utable sources who claimed that sev­er­al el­der­ly cit­i­zens had de­vel­oped in­fec­tions and even­tu­al­ly went blind af­ter the drug was ad­min­is­tered by an oph­thal­mol­o­gist be­fore the an­nounce­ment.

He re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion in­clud­ing the names of the per­sons/com­pa­nies from whom the drug was seized, the num­ber of peo­ple who were af­fect­ed by the use of the drug, a copy of any re­ports from in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the drug, and a list of peo­ple and com­pa­nies in­volved in the pro­vi­sion, sup­ply and im­por­ta­tion of the drug.

He filed a law­suit af­ter the min­istry pro­vid­ed some in­for­ma­tion but de­nied ac­cess to the ma­jor­i­ty of what was sought.

In late 2021, his law­suit was par­tial­ly up­held by Jus­tice Ricky Rahim, who ruled that the names of the peo­ple and com­pa­nies in­volved in the pro­vi­sion and sup­ply of the drug should have been pro­vid­ed.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Rahim ruled that the re­main­der of the undis­closed in­for­ma­tion was cor­rect­ly with­held.

In the ap­peal, Jus­tice Dean-Ar­mour­er not­ed that Jus­tice Rahim was cor­rect to rule that some of the in­for­ma­tion was ex­empt un­der sec­tion 28(1)(a) of the FOIA as it could prej­u­dice the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the breach of the law.

“The ev­i­dence was more than hy­po­thet­i­cal,” she said.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that he should not have per­formed his own analy­sis un­der Sec­tion 35 of the leg­is­la­tion, which per­mits the dis­clo­sure of ex­empt­ed doc­u­ments if there is suf­fi­cient pub­lic in­ter­est in do­ing so.

“It ought to have been quashed and re­mit­ted to the min­istry for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion,” she said.

Not­ing that the min­istry ad­mit­ted that it did not per­form the nec­es­sary ex­er­cise be­fore deny­ing Ma­haraj’s re­quest, Jus­tice Dean-Ar­mour­er said that its omis­sion con­sti­tut­ed a breach of its statu­to­ry du­ty.

Ma­haraj was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Kent Sam­lal, Can­dice Ramkhelawan, Aasha Ram­lal, and Ganesh Sa­roop.

The min­istry was rep­re­sent­ed by Roger Kawals­ingh, and Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj.