During public Divali festivities held at Wild Flower Park in St Clair over the weekend, Minister in the Ministry of Housing Phillip Alexander addressed lingering media questions about embattled fellow cabinet member David Lee, who recently lost a major High Court legal bid to halt ongoing criminal proceedings against him. When pressed by Sunday Express reporters on whether Lee should voluntarily step down from his ministerial post in light of the court ruling, Alexander explicitly deferred the final decision to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s office. “These are matters that fall exclusively under the Prime Minister’s purview,” Alexander stated, while expressing unwavering personal support for his cabinet colleague. He added that he fully expects Lee to secure a favorable outcome as the case moves forward to trial, referencing prior successful legal outcomes for Lee in related proceedings.
Lee himself was briefly in attendance at the same community Divali celebration, but departed early to fulfill a separate scheduled public engagement. As of press time, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has not issued any public statement addressing the High Court’s recent ruling, nor has she commented on Lee’s ongoing status within her ruling cabinet.
The legal turning point for Lee arrived earlier that Wednesday, when High Court Justice Westmin James formally dismissed Lee’s full application for judicial review and constitutional redress, rejecting every legal argument Lee’s legal team had put forward to block his committal to trial. The ruling greenlit the resumption of long-running criminal proceedings against Lee and his co-accused, local businessman Hugh Leong Poi.
The case traces back to initial charges filed in September 2022, when Lee was formally accused of misbehaviour in public office and criminal conspiracy to defraud the Trinidad and Tobago state of $1,416,292.65 in improperly awarded tax exemptions tied to the purchase of a high-end Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 Wagon. A preliminary enquiry wrapped up on April 7, 2025, when then-acting Chief Magistrate Christine Charles ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed, upheld a no-case submission, and ordered Lee’s full discharge.
Just one day before the statutory six-month window following that discharge was set to expire on October 6, 2025, Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard invoked Section 23(5) of the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act to file an application seeking an arrest warrant for Lee, which was later approved by Justice St Clair-Douglas, leading to Lee’s re-arrest the following day. Lee’s legal team subsequently launched the judicial review challenge, arguing that the legislative provision Gaspard relied on had already been formally repealed, and that the DPP’s application constituted unlawful new proceedings filed under defunct legal authority.
Justice James thoroughly dismantled that line of argument in his 2025 ruling, citing Section 33(2) of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act, which explicitly preserves all relevant clauses of the earlier preliminary enquiry legislation for cases that had already been formally instituted prior to the repeal. The judge confirmed that the DPP’s application was not a new, separate legal action, but a legitimate continuation of the original 2022 fraud case, and had been submitted well within the legally mandated time limit.
The High Court also rejected Lee’s secondary claim that the DPP was only permitted to use this specific committal procedure in narrow exceptional circumstances, such as the emergence of major new undisclosed evidence or proof of severe procedural error during the preliminary enquiry. Justice James clarified that the law establishes a clear, standalone mechanism allowing the DPP to challenge a magistrate’s discharge ruling based on the evidence already on record, requiring the DPP to form a reasonable opinion that the accused was wrongfully discharged, and mandating the presiding High Court judge to conduct an independent, full review to confirm that available evidence is sufficient to justify a full trial. The judge additionally threw out Lee’s allegation that Justice St Clair-Douglas had simply rubber-stamped the DPP’s original arrest warrant application, noting no evidence had been presented to prove the earlier judge had failed to conduct a full, proper review of the case record. All of Lee’s associated constitutional challenges and claims for financial damages against the state were dismissed in full.
Phillip stands with Lee
