17 years was too long for Police Supt. to challenge dismissal

A Senior Superintendent of Police was removed from office on November 6, 1984 after serving 24 years, but it took him 17 years to challenge the decision.On February 20, 2001 he filed a motion seeking a declaration that his removal from the Police Force was unconstitutional , null and void, and that he was entitled to his salary and superannuation benefits.
The trial judge who heard the case dismissed same on the ground that the delay of 17 years in filing the proceedings without an explanation was inordinate.
On appeal, that Court constituted Justices of Appeal Singh, Kissoon and Chang, held that the Appellant’s undue delay in filing his proceedings in a timely manner and with no explanation rendered the proceedings an abuse of the Court’s process which would undermine the integrity of the judicial system.
As such the appeal was dismissed.
Lawyer B. Gibson appeared for the appellant and Senior Counsel Doodnauth Singh appeared for the Respondent.
The facts of the case disclosed that in October 1987 the Appellant unsuccessfully petitioned the President of the Republic to reopen the matter and award him accrued benefits.
Fourteen years, later he also petitioned the Police Commission, but received no response.
Justice of Appeal Kissoon stated that among the grounds of appeal and the one that the court considered having regard to the trial judge’s decision was paragraph 3 (e): “the learned trial judge erred in regarding private law limitation as applying to fundamental rights.”
The Fundamental Rights (Practice and Procedure) Act, No.13 of 1988 makes no provision of a time limit within which a litigant may seek to secure his fundamental rights or constitutional rights.
However, Article 232 (9) of the constitution incorporated the Interpretation and General Clauses Act Cap. 2:01 for the purpose of interpreting the Constitution.

Section 39 of the Interpretation and General Clauses Act provides “In any written law where no time is prescribed or allowed within which anything shall be, such thing shall be done with all convenient speed and as often as the prescribed occasion arises.”

This section has the effect as if it formed part of the Constitution and frowns upon delay in filing any proceedings in the Court. If a court takes into consideration an explanation that the Applicant petitioned His Excellency the President within the first three years and was awaiting a reply, the lapse of time between his petition to the President and his filing of proceedings is so long that it should be taken for granted by the Commission that his dismissal from the force was lawfully and properly done.

The Appellant, having lain upon his rights for 14 years, awakened from his slumber, and pursued and insisted on his rights.

This inordinate length of time had elapsed during which the Appellant did nothing . This inordinate delay without a satisfactory explanation is fatal to the Appellant’s claim.
The statement by Sir Barnes Peyloch in the case of Lindsay Petroleum Company v. Hurd [1874] LRPC 221 although dealing with equitable principles are applicable in this case and all cases in which there is an inordinate delay without any reasonable explanation.
The Privy Council in the case of Durity v. Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago {2002} 60 WIR in dealing with the principle of delay under section 14 of the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution which is similar to our Article 153 state at page 459:
When a court is exercising its jurisdiction under section 14 of the Constitution and has to consider whether there has been delay such as would render the proceedings an abuse or would disentitle the claimant to relief, it will usually be important to consider whether the impugned decision or conduct was susceptible of adequate redress by a timely Application to of the Court under its ordinary non constitutional jurisdiction.
If it was, and if such an application was not made and would now be out of time, then failing a cogent explanation the court may readily conclude that the claimant’s constitutional motion is a misuse of the Court’s constitutional jurisdiction.
Kissoon said that it was unjust to give a remedy to the Appellant due to his neglect in filing his proceedings in a timely manner.