THE Court of Appeal has overturned a judge’s ruling in a novel constitutional claim involving the rights of victims of crime.

In September 2023, Justice Avason Quinlan-Williams declared the failure to ensure criminal cases involving child victims were expeditiously concluded was a breach of their right to protection of the law.

Before the judge was the constitutional claim of a a rape victim who had sued the State for inordinate delay in treating with sexual offences.

The State appealed the judge’ ruling, arguing that the court’s orders for the State to put mechanisms in place and allocate sufficient resources to ensure the rape trial was completed expeditiously ascribed rights to a victim of crime that are not provided for under the Constitution.

On July 22, in a ruling delivered at the Hall of Justice, Port of Spain, Justices of Appeal Mark Mohammed, Peter Rajkumar and Maria Wilson upheld the State’s appeal and set aside Quinlan-Williams's orders and declarations.

They also dismissed a cross-appeal file by the woman’s attorneys.

However, they did not order the alleged rape victim to pay the State’s costs either in the High Court or the Appeal Court after her attorney, Senior Counsel Lee Merry, argued it would discourage others from bringing similar claims. Merry also submitted it was the first time the courts had been asked to interrogate the particular constitutional point.

Despite upholding the appeal and setting aside the ruling of the High Court, the judges acknowledged a need to address situations involving victims of crime in a “sensitive, practical, and meaningful way.

“There are, in many cases, obvious physical, psychological, and financial consequences.

“These continue whether or not the criminal justice system has dealt with the alleged perpetrator.

“However, these are matters which have political, administrative, legislative, and financial implications which cannot properly be addressed by a court’s reading into the Constitution a right which neither its language, structure, nor precedent permit.”

The State’s lead attorney Rishi Dass, SC, raised 19 grounds of appeal, which were all successful.

In their unanimous ruling, written by Mohammed, the Appeal Court held there was neither a right to a speedy trial or a right to a trial within a reasonable time when the 1976 Republican Constitution was thoroughly analysed.

While admitting there were two international conventions which TT had ratified that provided a right to a speedy trial or a right to a trial within a reasonable time, Mohammed said these were not incorporated into domestic law. Mohammed said those rights could not be implied in the “catalogue of rights provided in sections 4 and 5 of the Constitution.

“To be clear, the contention is not that nothing can be implied into the Constitution. The case law demonstrates otherwise. Rather, the contention is that the exercise of implication must be cautiously undertaken so that a court does not, by judicial interpretation, bind the State and its citizens to obligations whic