COLOEL PADAYACHEE

The enrolment process includes preparing arrest warrants (J50s) or summons to appear (J175s) depending on the circumstances, and preparing bail affidavits particularly for Schedule 5 offences where the burden is on the accused to be released on bail.

“It is a summons to appear ... your warrants are prepared ... you then ready for Court ... you will plan your operation to execute your summons or your J50s ... Then you will start preparing bail affidavits ...”

Section 7(1A)(a) of the relevant Act is interpreted to apply to investigations involving serious, high profile, or complex corruption cases and commercial or financial crimes, and any one of these triggers justifies application of the section.

“What is your understanding of the triggers or the entry points in accordance with paragraph A of the subsection, that is 7(1A), capital A, A, the smaller A being paragraph A of the section ... It refers to investigations relating to ... three triggers, serious, high profile, or complex ... the question ... must this be read conjunctively or disjunctively ... So my understanding of it is that it is just serious and complex corruption ... any one of the three. Anyone.”

In practice, the focus is on serious corruption rather than emphasizing the 'high profile' nature of a case, as 'high profile' alone may not be sufficient for applying section 7(1A)(a).

“In terms of the practice that I am used to, it will be serious corruption ... High profile ... I would go more on the corruption and emphasise on the serious corruption and not bother about whether it is high profile ...”