Reid, Pinnock seek to quash judge's ruling because of conflict of interest claim

The Supreme Court is to rule this month whether to grant leave for former Education Minister Ruel Reid and a co-accused to go to the Judicial Review Court in a bid to quash a ruling of a senior parish court judge.

Reid and Caribbean Maritime University President Professor Fritz Pinnock contend that senior parish court judge Chester Crooks should not have ruled in an earlier matter because of a conflict of interest.

Crooks and Reid are both past students of Munro College in St Elizabeth.

The accused are now before the court in a multi-million-dollar fraud case.

Crooks had heard a preliminary objection from their attorney Hugh Wildman that the trial should not take place because officers from the Financial Investigation Division did not have the authority in law to arrest or bring charges against the accused.

On February 4 this year, Crooks disagreed and ordered that the fraud case should go to trial.

At the time, however, Crooks revealed that he would not try the case because there was a potential conflict of interest.

Last month, the accused filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to quash Crooks' ruling following the discovery that the judge is also a Munro past student.

In court documents, Crooks, who is named as the respondent, said while he did not openly state the exact potential conflict of interest, he considered that Reid was senior to him at Munro and was the head boy at one point.

Wildman and another attorney, Indira Patmore, argue that when Reid appeared before Crooks, the former minister did not know the judge.

According to Wildman, the law is clear that the judge should have made full disclosure, but he never did so and that is why the accused are seeking to quash the ruling.

The applicants contend that if they had known that the judge was conflicted, they would not have agreed to his hearing the application.

The judge is being represented by lawyers from the Attorney General's Chambers.

Last month, submissions were made in chambers at the Supreme Court in relation to the application.

Reid, his wife Sharen, their daughter Sharelle along with Pinnock and Brown's Town division councillor Kim Brown Lawrence are facing fraud and corruption charges in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

The accused were arrested in October 2019 for allegedly defrauding the Ministry of Education and the Caribbean Maritime University of millions of dollars

The case is set for mention on July 27.

- Barbara Gayle

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