Who is popular today?

A HIGH COURT judge has declared that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) breached his statutory duty under section 15 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The DPP had failed to notify a criminal defence attorney, on time, if his request for details relating to murder committals and indictments for children accused of murder, has been approved or denied.
The DPP now has 14 days to tell attorney Peter Carter if his FOIA request has been approved or refused.
Making the order on Tuesday was Justice Ricky Rahim.
Carter had been granted permission to have the court review the DPP’s failure to respond, on time, to the FOIA request he made in October last year.
The lawyer sought a declaration that that the DPP breached his statutory duty to take reasonable steps to notify him of the approval or refusal of the request, and an order compelling him to do so.
In the alternative, Carter had asked the court for a declaration that he is entitled to the information.
After making his request, one month later, in November, the DPP’s secretariat confirmed receipt of the request, advising it would be brought to the DPP’s attention.
On January 12, Carter issued a pre-action protocol letter, informing of his intention to file an application for judicial review challenging the DPP’s failure to comply with section 15 of the Freedom of Information Act.
Section 15 sets out the statutory period of 30 days in which a response of either an approval or refusal is to be provided.
Specifically, the attorney wants to know the number of murder committals as of July 1, 2020, currently in the possession of the DPP’s office awaiting indictments; the number of murder committals for child-accused not charged with adult(s) for the same period; the average timeframe, at present, for the filing of an indictment for murder once committal bundles have been received from the magistrates’ court; the average timeframe, at present, for the filing of filing an indictment for a child accused of murder who has not been charged with an adult once the department has received the committal bundle.
He also wants to know the shortest and longest length of time the DPP has filed an indictment for a child accused of murder, not with an adult, between receiving the committal bundle to the filing of the indictment in the high court, in the last ten years.
Carter said the DPP’s department was a public authority, being a department of the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs, and the director has neither communicated his approval, nor refusal, nor given a time-period for providing access to the information, if the request was approved.
Carter is represented by attorney Samantha Ramsaran.
The post DPP ordered to respond to lawyer’s FOIA request appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.