Magistrate must make statements available to defence lawyer—Chief Justice

Jan 13, 2013 News

Following his earlier ruling which ordered magistrate Adela Nagamootoo to show cause why she should not make statements available to defence Counsel Mursalene Bacchus in the Ramdhani Persaud Preliminary Inquiry, Chief Justice Ian Chang on Friday made another ruling.
This time he quashed the ruling of the magistrate that defence counsel is not entitled to see the statements of a witness who had refreshed his memory from those statements before going into the witness box.
After listening to further arguments the Chief Justice concurred with Attorney at Law Mursalene Bacchus in his arguments that compel the prosecution to make the statements of a witness available to the defence for inspection and cross examination. He said that this is on the basis that the witness had refreshed his memory from those statements.
Attorney Bacchus had moved to the High Court after requesting the statements of the Prosecution star witness Ravindra Persaud in the ongoing preliminary inquiry of US Citizen Ramdhani Persaud called ‘Prackash’ or ‘Prack’, 47 of 1071 New Area Canefield, East Canje.
Persaud is accused of murdering his wife, Bibi Shameena Deen, on March 20, 2012 at their Canefield home. Persaud is alleged to have shot the woman during a dispute at their home around 23:00hrs.
The lawyer had moved to the High Court after his request to have the statements made available to the defence was denied. That was after the witness had admitted under oath during his evidence in chief that before he entered the witness box to commence his evidence he refreshed his memory from his statements.
Defence counsel had then made an application that since the witness had the opportunity to refresh his memory from the statements, the said statements or a copy should be made available to the defence, so that he can cross examine the witness.
This was denied by the magistrate.
The Chief Justice had then ruled that the Magistrate should show cause why the statement should not be made available. He had also ordered that his ruling be served on the Director Of Public Prosecution, the Commissioner of Police and his subordinates, including the prosecutor.
The Chief Justice had also ordered that an order Nisi directing the magistrate to cease hearing on the matter until the determination of the application unless sufficient cause can be shown it should not be so.

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Magistrate must make statements available to defence lawyer—Chief Justice

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