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STRANDED in Canada since February 2020, Radhikar Ramoutar, 74, wants to come home.
Her application for an exemption to return to her home at Tumpuna Road, Arima, has elicited no response.
Now the ailing pensioner is fighting back.
She has mounted a legal challenge against the ministers of Health and National Security, Terrence Deyalsingh and Stuart Young respectively, over their decision to close all ports of entry into Trinidad and Tobago. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi may be joined in her lawsuit.
Her attorneys Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh, Stefan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan have sent a pre-action protocol letter to both ministers to remove what the lawyers have called their “arbitrary, illegal and unlawful” policy on citizens’ entry to their homeland.
Rambally, an Opposition MP, told the Newsday Ramoutar who has a pacemaker, left for Canada close to a year ago to console and assist her daughter, whose husband had died.
He said her visit was for approximately two weeks and she took enough medication and finances for that period.
TT closed its borders in March to curb the spread of the covid19 virus, leaving many nationals in exile, including Ramoutar.
Rambally said Ramoutar, who also suffers from high blood pressure and had to be hospitalised in Canada, applied several times for an exemption to return home, as she had no medication. He said she also lost her pension because she was unable to present herself to prove she is alive.
Rambally said the Public Health Ordinance regulations are not only unconstitutional, but also unlawful and /or ultra vires the Public Health Ordinance and the Immigration Act.
He said there is contention over Section 105 of the Public Health Ordinance, which gives the minister wide powers to combat covid19, but closing ports of entry is not one such power.
The lawyers also contend that the minister “cannot lawfully use regulations, which are subsidiary legislation created by the executive, to amend, undermine or alter substantive benefits conferred to an/or enjoyed by Mrs Ramoutar and other citizens by primary legislation and/or the Constitution.”
He said the pre-action protocol letter argues that the use of these regulations, without parliamentary scrutiny, oversight and approval, to limit fundamental rights and freedoms is directly repugnant to society’s constitutional norms and values.
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