Four-time Calypso Monarch Winston “Cro Cro” Rawlins will be allowed to appeal a judge’s ruling which found him guilty of slandering businessman Inshan Ishmael in a public performance.
Justice of Appeal James Aboud granted Rawlins his application for an extension of time to file the record of appeal.
Ishmael’s attorneys had filed an application for the dismissal of the calypsonian’s notice of appeal because it was not filed within three months of Justice Frank Seepersad’s ruling on January 29.
Seepersad had ruled Rawlins abused his creative licence in his 2023 calypso Another Sat is Outside Again, in response to Ishmael’s statements about people in Laventille and Beetham.
In ruling, Aboud weighed procedural delays against the broader implications of the case for TT's cultural traditions.
He noted that while Rawlins’s legal team, which included two senior counsel, should have adhered to court timelines, the appeal raised significant cultural and legal questions.
“The demarcations between our calypso’s historic, satiric, and comedic commentary and the rules of strict journalism need to be delineated by our higher courts,” Aboud remarked.
The appeal also challenges the trial judge’s elevation of Cro Cro’s sung words from slander to libel, a legal distinction with broader implications for artists and performers.
Aboud expressed doubts about the correctness of reaching this conclusion without reviewing the full notes of evidence, which had not yet been made available.
“I do not at first blush see how a slander can be elevated to a libel in the circumstances of this case.
"Damages for libel vastly exceed those for slander.
“If this elevation of a slander to a libel remained in our lawbooks, then our calypsonians would be restricted by this judgment in any live performance, whether at a private party among friends or at a public performance. Any poet or minstrel would likewise be constrained during the expression of his or her art if someone unexpectedly pulled out a camera phone.
“I am therefore unable, on the evidence before me, and without sight of the transcript of the evidence, to comment on whether the sung words can be elevated from a slander to a libel.
“In my opinion, on the basis of the limited evidence, it cannot be said that there are no good prospects of success on the appeal on his point. It seems to me that the prospects of appeal are not perfect, but are arguable,” Aboud said.
While emphasising the need for procedural discipline, he highlighted the importance of advancing jurisprudence and ensuring proportionality.
He further noted that while he had doubts that a “tortious slander can be elevated to a libel by the publication of a slander by a third party on his mobile phone to persons unknown,” calypsonians were "not to be equated with journalists reporting news but entertainers using wit and, sometimes, pointed innuendo. Lines need to be drawn.”
Aboud said he could not say, "without sight of the unfiled record of appeal and, importantly, the transcript of the notes of evi
