Jaiwantie Ramdass v Minister of Finance and another (Trinidad and Tobago)

Leave to apply for judicial review requires an arguable ground with a realistic prospect of success, free from a discretionary bar or other knockout blow. On an appeal against leave, reversal requires that the grant was plainly wrong or that a clean knockout blow makes success impossible.

The rule against bias depends on the facts and context. It is not confined to judicial or adjudicative decisions and may apply during preliminary stages of a process. Constitutional procedures securing an office-holder’s independence and removal may not exclude every executive investigation. The appeal was dismissed and the judicial review claim was allowed to proceed.

The Auditor General challenged the Minister of Finance’s recommendation, approved by the Cabinet, to appoint an investigation team concerning the understatement of revenue in the public accounts and her conduct in auditing those accounts.

James J refused leave on the grounds that neither bias nor breach of the constitutional protections was arguable. The Court of Appeal reversed that decision and granted leave. The appellants appealed to the Privy Council, arguing that both grounds disclosed a pure question of law and that there was a knockout answer. The central issue was whether the Court of Appeal was plainly wrong to grant leave.

1. Disposition. The appeal was dismissed. The appellants had not shown that the Court of Appeal was plainly wrong or identified a knockout blow. The judicial review claim therefore proceeded on all grounds, without the merits of the investigation being determined.
2. Leave and appellate threshold. Leave requires an arguable ground with a realistic prospect of success, subject to a discretionary bar or other knockout blow. The leave stage is intended to screen weak or vexatious claims on a relatively quick consideration of the available material. Once leave has been granted, the appeal threshold is correspondingly high: the grant should ordinarily be reversed only if plainly wrong or defeated by a clean knockout blow.
3. Constitutional protection. Sections 136 and 137 of the Constitution provide exclusive procedures for removing the office-holders to whom they apply. They secure independence and security of tenure. The investigation team was not itself tasked with deciding removal or initiating the section 136 process, but its report might be the first step towards removal and might carry significant weight because it was commissioned by the executive. The significance of executive involvement had not been addressed in Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago v The Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago [2018] UKPC 23. The constitutional ground was therefore arguable and potentially fact-sensitive.
4. Bias and procedural fairness. The rule against bias is an aspect of natural justice whose application depends on the particular facts and context. There is no hard and fast rule excluding non-adjudicative decisions. Procedural fairness may apply to preliminary steps which do not themselves alter legal rights but may lead to later decisions with legal consequences.
5. Application. It was arguable that the Minister’s selection of the investigators, control of their terms of reference and remuneration, requirement that they report to him, responsibility for the Ministry connected with the understatement, and apparent failure to subject his own conduct to investigation created a one-sided process. The pleaded allegations of actual or apparent bias and improper purpose could be resolved only at a full hearing with appropriate disclosure.
6. Statutory duties. The potential effect of section 24(1)(a) of the Integrity in Public Life Act and section 20 of the Judicial Review Act, which require public functions to be exercised fairly, impartially and in accordance with natural justice or fairly, remained open for determination at the substantive hearing.

• Privy Council: Appeal against the grant of leave dismissed on 28 January 2025. The claim proceeded on all grounds: [2025] UKPC 4.
• Court of Appeal of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago: On 21 June 2024, reversed James J’s refusal of leave and granted leave to apply for judicial review.
• High Court: James J refused leave on 3 June 2024.