The Judicial & Legal Service Commission (JLSC) has ruled on the case of the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mr Roshan Santokhee.
The court ruled in favor of early retirement for the lawyer from the DPP's office following the controversy in which he found himself.
Photos of him participating in a lunch, organized by the village council, for elderly people in Fond-du-Sac, were published on social networks and in the press. He was seen alongside two ministers from the Militant Socialist Movement (MSM).
The event, considered political, in constituency no. 6 (Grand-Baie/Poudre-d'Or), is poorly received from an ethical point of view within the legal profession, particularly in relation to the duty of impartiality of Me Roshan Santokhee as a lawyer within the public prosecution. The office of the DPP, under the direction of Me Rashid Ahmine, had sent correspondence in this regard to the JLSC, a body chaired by Chief Justice Rehana Mungly-Gulbul and which counts among its members Senior Puisne Judge Nirmala Devat, a judge of the Supreme Court and the Chairman of the Public Service Commission (PSC).
Furthermore, the Labor Party MP, Me Shakeel Mohamed, had officially denounced the presence of Roshan Santokhee at this “political event”. He announced at a press conference on June 3, 2024, that he had sent a letter to the president of the JLSC to ask if there was an investigation initiated into the case of Roshan Santokhee. “The office of the DPP must operate with complete independence,” he maintained. He questioned “the new trend of doing politics while being a civil servant employed by the JLSC in the DPP's office.” »
Before becoming Assistant DPP, Me Roshan Santokhee held the position of Senior State Counsel. He was also a magistrate in the district court of Port-Louis and officiated as Returning Officer in the 2020 village elections in Bel-Air/Rivière-Sèche. He was the prosecution's lawyer during the motion for bail of activist Bruneau Laurette in the Moka court in 2023. Most recently, he was briefly one of the lawyers charged with leading the prosecution in the lawsuit brought against Bernard Maigrot.
