13/06/2026
Arrested, jailed and prosecuted over case dismissed 10 years earlier: Man wins $225,000 Constitutional claim
A Chaguanas farmer and mechanic who was arrested, jailed and forced to defend himself against a criminal charge that had already been dismissed a decade earlier has won a landmark constitutional lawsuit against the State.
In a judgment delivered on Friday June 12th, 2026, High Court Judge Madam Justice Jacqueline Wilson KC ruled that the constitutional rights of Suruj Samaroo were breached after authorities executed an outdated warrant and revived criminal proceedings that had legally ended years before.
Samaroo was represented by attorneys Abdel Q. Mohammed and Kent Samlal in the constitutional motion against the Attorney General.
The court heard that Samaroo was originally charged with larceny in 2002. A warrant was issued in 2004 after he missed a court hearing.
However, the criminal matter was subsequently heard and dismissed by a Magistrate on October 18th, 2005.
Despite that dismissal, police officers arrived at Samaroo's home on May 29th, 2015 and arrested him in full view of relatives, neighbours and members of his community. He was taken into custody, transferred between police stations and eventually remanded to the Golden Grove Prison, where he spent eight days before being able to access bail.
According to the judgment, Samaroo repeatedly told police officers, prosecutors and the court that the charge had already been dismissed.
However, his protests were ignored because official court records failed to properly reflect the 2005 ruling.
Justice Wilson found that the case was not the result of a simple clerical mistake but rather a chain of serious failures within the justice system.
The judge pointed to the failure to execute or recall the warrant within a reasonable period, the failure to record the dismissal of the charge in the court records and the unexplained absence of endorsements on the court file for almost 11 years.
The court also heard that after his arrest, Samaroo continued appearing before the courts for nearly two years while trying to convince authorities that the matter had already been dismissed. The charge was eventually thrown out again in 2017 for want of prosecution.
In her ruling, Justice Wilson said multiple safeguards that should have protected Samaroo failed completely, resulting in him being deprived of his liberty and subjected to a prosecution that should never have occurred.
The court found that his constitutional rights to liberty, protection of the law, access to legal representation and procedural fairness had all been violated.
Justice Wilson awarded Samaroo $200,000 in compensatory damages and $25,000 in vindicatory damages, together with interest from May 29th, 2015 and legal costs.
The matter has been adjourned to June 25th, 2026 for the assessment of costs if an agreement cannot be reached between the parties.
In a stinging judgment, Justice Wilson rejected the State's argument that the ordeal amounted to an isolated administrative oversight, finding instead that the wrongful arrest, imprisonment and renewed prosecution were the result of cumulative and systemic failures that allowed a dismissed case to resurface nearly a decade later.— Story by I.A.N News
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