Jodie Blackstock of the Garden Court International Team was led by Anand Ramlogan SC and instructed by Freedom Law Chambers of Trinidad and Tobago.
On 2 October 2026, the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago determined that the failure of the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon (the “Mercy Committee”) to progress and decide the petitions for a Presidential Pardon of Mr Uraz Mohammed over a seven-year period infringed sections 4(b) and 5(2)(h) of the Constitution.
Mr Mohammed made three separate applications between 2017 and 2021 for a Presidential Pardon to the Mercy Committee. He asserted that he had made significant progress toward rehabilitation, serving as an infirmary orderly and being described as a model prisoner by staff and medical officers.
Despite repeated applications, Mr Mohammed received no substantive response from the Committee. Following a series of Freedom of information Act requests and subsequent judicial review proceedings to obtain information concerning the Committee’s operations, disclosed information revealed that there were 73 outstanding prisoner applications together with 118 non-prisoner applications and during the preceding five years, the Committee had determined 22 applications, recommending a pardon for only one prisoner.
The Court held that the cumulative effect of the prolonged delay, the absence of effective administrative arrangements for progressing applications, the repeated deferral of matters and even meetings of the Committee, and the failure to communicate meaningfully with applicants demonstrated that the constitutional mercy process was not administered consistently with the protection of the law guaranteed by section 4(b) of the Constitution.
The Committee’s process also infringed Mr Mohammed’s section 5(2)(h) constitutional right by failing to provide such procedural safeguards as were reasonably necessary to permit his meaningful participation before the Committee reached its decision and before the application lost its practical utility.
