标签： Trinidad and Tobago

After more than four and a half decades behind bars for a 1978 high-profile murder, a Caribbean appellate court has overturned a controversial 50-year prison sentence imposed on Peter Matthews, ordering an emergency new sentencing hearing before a senior High Court judge over a critical legal error that undermined decades of judicial proceedings.

The core of the case dates back to 1978, when four-year-old Roslyn Lucas was found dead at her St James Providence Estate home following a sexual assault. Matthews was ultimately convicted of the child’s murder in 1984, originally handed a death sentence that was commuted to life imprisonment in 1994. In a 2025 resentencing proceeding, High Court Justice Maria Busby Earle-Caddle issued a fresh 50-year term. Calculating the 46 years, eight months and 25 days Matthews had already served in pre-trial and post-conviction custody, the original resentencing left just over three additional years of prison time to complete. Alongside the sentence, the judge mandated psychological evaluation, participation in targeted rehabilitation programs including the cognitive behavioral initiative Thinking for Change and adult literacy courses, and post-release probation supervision.

But the three-justice appellate panel – led by Justices Nolan Bereaux, Maria Wilson and Geoffrey Henderson – ruled last week that the entire 2025 resentencing process was fundamentally invalid. The fatal flaw? The lower court failed to correctly and conclusively establish Matthews’ age at the time of the 1978 killing, a detail with profound legal consequences for the case.

In her written ruling, Justice Wilson emphasized that the sentencing judge had a clear obligation to adjourn proceedings to resolve the age question before issuing a new sentence, given how central the detail was to Matthews’ legal classification. “It is very unfortunate that the resentencing judge did not find it appropriate to adjourn her decision until she was able to resolve the age of the appellant,” Wilson wrote, noting that the error carried “very serious” consequences for a man who had already spent most of his life in incarceration.

New evidence accepted by the appellate court – an official birth certificate – confirms Matthews was born on July 14, 1961, meaning he was only 17 years old when the crime occurred. Under the law in effect in 1978, this classification made him a child offender, a status that carried strict legal protections: people under the age of 18 could not lawfully be sentenced to death. Because his original 1984 death sentence was unlawful on its face, every subsequent legal proceeding that flowed from that sentence – including the 1994 commutation to life imprisonment and the 2025 resentencing – was also legally invalid.

The appellate court described the case as highly unusual and legally unprecedented in its complexity. “This is a case where the sentence of death was unlawfully imposed on the appellant,” the court’s ruling noted.

Matthews’ defense team, led by attorneys Joseph Sookoo and Abigail Roach, had long argued that their client should have been sentenced from the start as a minor offender. This classification would drastically lower the applicable sentencing range, require a court to prioritize rehabilitation over punitive sentencing, and mandate regular periodic review of Matthews’ incarceration to assess his readiness for release.

Representatives of the state, led by attorney Wayne Rajbansie, initially challenged the authenticity of the newly submitted birth certificate in written legal filings. However, during oral arguments before the appellate court, Rajbansie withdrew the challenge and conceded that the birth certificate was valid, confirming that the original 1984 death sentence was indeed unlawful.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar used the stage of the annual Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day Thanksgiving Service to make a major policy pledge, reconfirming her administration’s plan to build a dedicated secondary school for the Spiritual Baptist community in Moruga. The event, held Wednesday at the Moruga Multipurpose Youth and Sport Facility, brought together faith leaders, elected officials, and hundreds of congregants to honor the faith’s centuries-long legacy of resistance and resilience.

The day of celebration began early, when local Member of Parliament Michelle Benjamin (representing Moruga/Tableland) led a vibrant parade through Moruga’s main streets. Accompanied by traditional drummers, folk dancers, and hymn singers, Benjamin joined Spiritual Baptist elders for the community’s sacred table-lighting ritual, a core practice of gratitude ahead of the main service. When Persad-Bissessar arrived later in the day, clad in traditional Spiritual Baptist attire, she was greeted with enthusiastic fanfare, as congregants pressed forward to greet her and worshippers lifted up traditional hymns. She was joined by a full contingent of her Cabinet, including House Leader Barry Padarath, Energy Minister Roodal Moonilal, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander, and Social Development Minister Vandana Mohit, all of whom joined her on stage for the keynote address.

In her remarks, Persad-Bissessar framed the new secondary school as the latest step in a decades-long partnership between her United National Congress (UNC) administration and the Spiritual Baptist community. She recalled that during her 1996 tenure as Minister of Legal Affairs, under the late former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, she first secured a land grant for the community. Later, as Education Minister, she championed the opening of a local primary school, and during her current term as Prime Minister, she delivered the St Barbara’s Spiritual Shouter Baptist Primary School and a new Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) centre. The secondary school, she emphasized, is the next critical milestone in expanding educational access for the community.

“Land alone is not enough. The pathway out of poverty, to empowerment and dignity, is education. And now, God has brought me back into a position where I can once more deliver to this great community. On Friday, I announced in Parliament that your UNC Government will now establish your long-awaited secondary school,” she told the gathered crowd.

She pointed to the region’s existing Cowen Hamilton Secondary School, founded in 1962 by leaders of the Fifth Company Baptist Church as the first secondary school serving rural Baptist communities, as proof of the transformative impact of educational investment. “More than a school, it was upliftment through education, built through sacrifice, organisation, and vision,” she said.

Persad-Bissessar wove deep historical context and personal testimony into her address, highlighting the faith’s roots in resistance to colonial oppression. She reminded attendees that Spiritual Baptist traditions were forged by enslaved and free African people in Trinidad, and that for more than 30 years, practitioners were forced to worship in secret after British colonial authorities passed the 1917 Shouter Prohibition Ordinance, which criminalized their religious practices. “They prayed in the bush. They hid their bells. They muffled their voices. But they never stopped,” she said. “That resilience, that African resilience, is something every citizen of this country should honour and respect. They tried to silence you, but your faith grew stronger. They tried to diminish you, but your spirit became more deeply rooted in this land. And in that persecution, instead of extinguishing your light, they caused it to burn brighter.”

Opening up about her own personal connection to the faith, the Prime Minister shared a moving story from her childhood: when she was nine years old, her father Lilraj fell inexplicably ill, spending weeks at San Fernando General Hospital without a diagnosis or improvement. After months of decline, the family was urged to seek prayers from a Spiritual Baptist congregation in Penal. “And as God is my witness, from the very first service he attended, his health began to improve. And his life was spared,” she said. Following the miracle recovery, her entire family joined the church, and Persad-Bissessar was later baptized in the faith at Quinam Beach in Siparia, where a Mother Elder gave her guidance that she has carried throughout her life: “From this day, put God in front and walk behind.”

“I did not inherit this faith by ancestry. I was received into it by grace. And that, my brothers and sisters, is something I will never take for granted. The Spiritual Baptist Faith is a haven, a refuge. A place where an Indo-Trini girl from Siparia can be received, transformed, and be a beacon for the people,” she said.

Persad-Bissessar also noted that it was the 1996 UNC administration that secured full official recognition for the faith, establishing Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day as a national public holiday, making Trinidad and Tobago the only country in the world to grant this level of official recognition to the tradition. Repealing the 1917 ban and creating the holiday, she said, was an act of long-overdue corrective justice that cemented the faith’s place as a core part of Trinidad and Tobago’s national heritage. Parallel 75th Diamond Jubilee celebrations for the faith were also held Wednesday in Balmain, Couva, drawing hundreds of attendees from across the country.

A landmark appellate court ruling has reignited debate over transparency standards for public-owned enterprises in Trinidad and Tobago, after judges overturned a lower court decision and ruled that state-run Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd unlawfully withheld employee salary and identity information from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

The legal battle stretches back to 2018, when activist and former government minister Devant Maharaj submitted a formal FOI request seeking granular operational details from Heritage, including full names and exact remuneration packages for all employees. While the energy giant eventually released a limited set of data, it refused to disclose individual identities and specific salary figures, invoking a legal exemption that shields personal information from unreasonable public disclosure.

Maharaj contested this refusal through judicial review. Though the High Court acknowledged that Heritage had broken procedural rules by failing to provide sufficient justification for its refusal and skipping a required public interest balancing test mandated under Section 35 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it ultimately ruled that the company had substantially met its legal obligations after releasing an anonymized “Annual Company Base Salary List”. This document only provided broad salary ranges grouped by job category, with no individual names or exact compensation details.

On appeal, Maharaj’s legal team, led by prominent senior counsel Anand Ramlogan, argued that the generalized salary range document was no substitute for the specific information Maharaj had requested, and that the High Court had misinterpreted the FOIA by accepting the incomplete disclosure as compliant. Heritage defended its position, maintaining that its response satisfied all statutory requirements.

Delivering the unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel consisting of Justices Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mohammed and James Aboud, Justice Bereaux rejected the High Court’s core reasoning, concluding that Heritage’s approach remained unlawful even after releasing the aggregated salary list. Justice Bereaux clarified that once a public body invokes the personal information exemption, FOIA explicitly requires a formal Section 35 balancing exercise: the body must weigh whether the public interest in disclosure of the requested information outweighs the potential harm to individual privacy. The appellate court confirmed that this mandatory assessment was never properly completed by Heritage.

“The respondent clearly did not wish to disclose the document,” Justice Bereaux wrote in the judgment, adding that if the refusal was rooted in public interest concerns, the company was legally obligated to articulate those concerns and provide formal justification for its decision.

The court also emphasized that the anonymized salary range document provided by Heritage was fundamentally different from the information Maharaj had requested. Where the original request sought individual-specific data, the company only offered generalized, aggregated ranges that failed to match the scope of the request. On this basis, the panel ruled the High Court erred in finding that the document met FOIA requirements or qualified as a permissible redacted disclosure under Section 16 of the Act.

In its final order, the Court of Appeal allowed Maharaj’s appeal, set aside the High Court’s original ruling, and remanded the request back to Heritage for reconsideration. The company is now required to complete the mandatory public interest analysis and re-evaluate the request in full compliance with the FOIA. The judgment also underscored the core purpose of the FOIA: to advance governmental transparency and accountability, and requires that any denial of disclosure by a public authority must be rigorously justified on statutory grounds.

In addition to the substantive ruling, the court ordered Heritage to cover all of Maharaj’s legal costs for both the High Court and appellate proceedings, with the total amount to be assessed by the court if the two parties cannot reach an agreement on the sum.