Wed | May 15, 2024

Court to rule at 2 o'clock on Reid, Pinnock application in bid to quash charges

Published:Monday | March 2, 2020 | 12:00 AM
In January, Ruel Reid and Fritz Pinnock renewed their application for a Full Court hearing after Chief Justice Bryan Sykes rejected it in the Supreme Court.

Former Education Minister Ruel Reid and Caribbean Maritime University President Fritz Pinnock will find out this afternoon whether the Supreme Court will grant their request to go to the review court to seek to quash criminal charges against them.

The decision was expected to be handed down at the Supreme Court at 10 o'clock this morning  but has been pushed back to 2 p.m. 

In January, Reid and Pinnock renewed their application for a Full Court hearing after Chief Justice Bryan Sykes rejected it in the Supreme Court.

The men have contended that the FID was not empowered by law to bring the charges against them and therefore acted illegally. 

They also argued that the FID is purely an investigative body and does not have the legal authority to bring criminal charges or obtain a fiat from the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute them. 

However, Richard Small, the attorney representing the FID has rejected assertions that police personnel unlawfully arrested and charged Reid and Pinnock. 

Reid; his wife Sharen; their daughter Sharelle as well as Pinnock and Brown’s Town Division Councillor Kim Brown Lawrence were in October arrested and charged with corruption related offences following a year-long probe into the Education Ministry and the CMU.

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