The State’s decision to detain over 100 migrants at the Heliport in Chaguaramas could cost them as, they now have to defend scores of compensation claims.
The illegal migrants were unlawfully held at the Chaguaramas Heliport due to the delay by National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds in declaring the facility a detention centre after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Delivering a decision on Wednesday morning, High Court Judge Frank Seepersad upheld a habeas corpus from a Venezuelan national Samih Tarek Soriti Benitez, who has been detained at the facility after being arrested alongside almost 200 fellow nationals at a nightclub in St James on July 8.
The man’s lawyer Gerald Ramdeen noted that before the Government began using the facility, then national security minister, now current Energy and Energy Industries Minister Stuart Young issued a declaration under the Immigration Act for the facility to be used to quarantine illegal migrants that would normally be detained at the Immigration Detention Centre in Aripo.
Ramdeen pointed out that after the Ministry of Health stopped mandatory quarantining under the pandemic, Hinds should have issued another order for the facility to be used strictly for detention as with the centre in Aripo.
However, an order from Hinds to Chief of Defence Staff Air Vice Marshall Darryl Daniel only came hours after he successfully pursued a separate but similar case on behalf of six illegal migrants who were arrested alongside Benitez.
This now means other detainees at the heliport could now make claims against the State over their detention up to when the order was issued.
While Justice Seepersad ruled that Benitez was entitled to compensation for being unlawfully detained at the location after his arrest like the six others, he did not order his release based on the order.
The compensation due to Benitez and the others will be calculated at a later date.
Justice Seepersad said, “It is patently obvious that the order of then-minister of national security (Stuart) Young to have the heliport declared as an immigration detention centre was limited to the duration of this country’s mandatory quarantine measures in response to the Covid pandemic.”
“As a result, migrants who have entered into the jurisdiction illegally and who have not availed themselves of the amnesty afforded via registration can be deported notwithstanding their refugee status recognition by the UNHCR,” he said.
He added: “The State must end its vacillation and either enforce the existing or immediately formulate a humanitarian policy, honour the Convention obligations and enact the requisite enabling legislation,” Justice Seepersad said.
“The failure to take decisive action is long overdue and amounts to a dereliction of duty,” he said.