January 27, 2020

Sedition Charges Dropped

By Newsroom

      

Watson Duke, President of the Public Services Association (PSA) was “feeling like an eagle” on Monday morning after Chief  Magistrate  Maria Busby-Earl-Caddle dismissed the Sedition Charges that were brought against him in August 2019.

   When the matter came up for hearing in Port of Spain on  Monday morning the Chief Magistrate, after hearing argument from  Duke’s team of attorneys, declared that the charge is not law.

That was based on a January 13th ruling by High Court Judge Frank Seepersad that   Sections 3 and 4 of the Sedition Act are unconstitutional based on the fact that they impose disproportionate and unjustified restrictions on a citizen’s free speech, expression and thought.

Attorneys representing the State wanted Duke’s case to be halted until an appeal against Seepersad’s ruling, which was filed by the State, comes up for hearing on February 3rd.

Duke was charged with Sedition based on statements he made at a press conference in November 2018 but he was not charged until August 2019.

He was reported as saying “We must be pre­pared to die, folks. You know why? This is your be­lief, this is your fam­i­ly, and I am send­ing the mes­sage clear… let Row­ley them know that the day they come for us in WASA, we are pre­pared to die and the morgue would be pick­ing up peo­ple.”

“I prayed about this. It disrupted my wife and family,” Duke said when he hosted a news conference after the charges were dropped by the Chief Magistrate.

“In the Eighth Court, the judge recognized that the law lacks certainty, that it lacks the characteristic features of a sovereign democratic state. In other words, it is unconstitutional”, he added in reference to Seepersad’s ruling.

“In those words my attorney found a leg to stand on and they represented the case before the learned senior magistrate. I never conceptualized overthrowing the State,” Duke said on Monday morning.

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