Former Congress of the People (COP) political leader Prakash Ramadhar has lost his appeal against the decision of a High Court judge who ordered him to pay $255,000 in compensation to his estranged brother and two other COP members for defamation.
Delivering a written judgment at the Hall of Justice yesterday, Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Gregory Smith ruled that trial judge Vasheist Kokaram was right when he ruled against Ramadhar, former COP chairman Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan and founding party member, Iqbal Hydal in December 2015.
Smith, who wrote the judgment, said that Kokaram was “patently aware of the law” and had properly applied it to the facts and circumstances of the case.
“The exercise was fairly performed and in the present case I find no reason to second guess the impressions he formed and the findings he made on the contested facts before him,” Smith said.
Appellate judge Prakash Moosai disagreed with his colleagues and gave a dissenting judgment. However, Moosai’s written reasons was not attached to the judgment.
The lawsuit arose out of a controversy in October 2013 after Ramadhar’s brother, Kishore, and COP members Rudolph Hanamji and Satu-Ann Ramcharan were accused of sending a letter with information about the COP’s membership to the then Opposition People’s National Movement.
The letter stated that three other members who contested the last local government elections were not members of the COP, as legally required.
The PNM subsequently wrote to the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) challenging the membership of the candidates.
Kishore, Hanamji and Ramcharan, who were suspended from the party’s national executive and national council, denied any wrongdoing as they claimed their signatures had been forged on the leaked document.
Ramadhar was ordered to pay his brother $90,000; the same amount to Hanamji and $75,000 to Ramcharan.
Seepersad-Bachan was ordered to pay Kishore $75,000; the same amount to Hanamji and $50,000 to Ramcharan while Hydal was ordered to pay $25,000 to Kishore Ramdhar; the same sum to Hanamji and $20,000 to Ramcharan.
Ramadhar was the only of the three to appeal Kokaram’s decision.
In his appeal, Ramadhar, an attorney, claimed that Kokaram misinterpreted his statements and failed to properly consider his defence of fair comment. The grounds were dismissed by the Court of Appeal in its judgment.