Lindsey Collen Appeared before the Supreme Court Today
08.12.2022
Today the Supreme Court was once again transformed into a lively riot of colour and movement, set against the black-clad attorneys’ robes that move slowly in a court room in which nobody can hear what is happening, only muffled words like “Limited” and phrases like “for Plaintiff number...” and “observation” and then fairly often “31 January” or some date in July, and the loud occasional shout of a police officer, “Silans!”
So today the LALIT constitutional challenge against the Immigration Act and Citizenship Act came up again in the Supreme Court, explaining the enlivening of the place. Some present for LALIT were seeing the inside of a court for the first time. One member was turned away because he did not meet the Court’s dress code.
Last time, on 27 October, LALIT’s attorney Ayesha Jeewa, had requested a fast-track hearing because the case concerns human rights, and puts so many people in a state of anxiety about being banished from the country – without knowing the reason or being able to appeal.
The case was fixed for today 8 December. Our Attorney, as well as our two barristers Antoine Domingue S.C. and Jean-Claude Bibi, are all acting pro bono, which is Latin for doing a case without taking fees, and in this case, forgoing fees precisely because they agree with the cause being fought for. Our lawyers are doing it, thus, for the public good.
Lindsey Collen and Ram Seegobin were present, together with representatives and members of organizations that support the case and other well-wishers, in all 26 of us.
As usual, the Supreme Court was a strange place to be – for the public. The Court met in “open court”. We hear cases, after all, in public. This way everyone sees, hears and understands. This is what is called “open justice”. It is not behind closed doors. It is “o-kler”. But no-one can actually hear what is going on. (See Rajni Lallah’s article in Revi LALIT 149.) Plaintiffs and defendants alike, members of the public present one and all, are treated with utter colonial disdain: it matters not whether we hear or not, let alone understand or not. There is an excellent new public address system in the Court, whereby each attorney, or clerk, the judge herself, each actor, is provided with a microphone in front of them. There are functioning loud-speakers all around the large, modern court-room. But, for reasons unknown to us, there is a strange process that prevails that prevents the people concerned, and the public at large, from knowing exactly what is going on. One lawyer, with a fine beard, consistently and meticulously makes use of his microphone, as a reminder that there is at least one person in the Court who respects the right of the public to know what is going on.
What transpired in the LALIT case was this. Remember, Lindsey Collen Seegobin’s case has three defendants i.e. the Prime Minister, the State and the Attorney General. Well, the Attorney General was ready for a hearing. The first two defendants, however, the Prime Minister and the State, sent four pages of requests for particulars. The first five or so requests are for documents that could have been requested a month ago: birth certificates and marriage certificates, certificates of registration as a citizen, and university degree certificates. The other fifteen or so questions seem to be on legal issues that will come up for debate in the actual Supreme Court hearing i.e. the points of law that will be argued in the case. Our Attorney described it as “disappointing”. The Attorney representing the Prime Minister and the State may have said something like, “We take note.” Or maybe it was the judge.
In the Court, for all the dozens of other cases alongside the LALIT one, the dark Dickensian atmosphere persists, bizarre now in the modernist architecture of the New Supreme Court. The Court Number 23 is designed so that there is apparently no place for a Plaintiff or a Defendant. When someone’s name is called, one police officer beckons you, while another signals you should stay where you are. Your only choice is to hover. Just hover. So, you hover.
“Eventually, you might drift forward and then find yourself stranded in a kind of no-man’s-land, like I was, when I got up and walked down the centre aisle and stood between the back of some desks and the side of others,” Lindsey Collen explained afterwards. “There, a policeman told me to stop, and then signaled I was to remove my right hand from the desk alongside me,” Lindsey said.
In other cases, some plaintiffs and defendants were called into an open space a bit nearer the judge, where presumably she could hear them but the public could not. And they just stood in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway, Lindsey’s case will continue on Thursday 12 January 2023.
After the hearing, there was a short Press Briefing. Present, as well as someone from Rodrigues writing for social media, were reporters from L’Express, Top FM and Radio One. Reporters, like everyone else, hear little of what is going on in Court. It must be both frustrating for them, and it is also a problem for democracy. Open Court includes proceedings being open to the press.
Our Facebook Page has a short video statement from Lindsey Collen given in front of the Supreme Court Building, expressing her appreciation to the organizations and individuals who signed up to the Common Declaration against the repressive clauses of the new immigration and citizenship laws affecting so many Mauritian couples and families, and also affecting many future marriages in the country.
