“Someone must be held accountable.”

Those were the words of Joanne Pantin, one of two women who sued the State after being stranded abroad when Trinidad and Tobago closed its borders during the covid19 pandemic in March 2020. Five years later, she has finally received vindication through a ruling of the Court of Appeal. But for Pantin, no judgment or monetary award can erase the suffering she endured.

“I cannot honestly tell you… If that’s the highlight of something for all you had to endure, would compensation wipe that away? That cannot fix what was broken,” she said in an emotional interview on September 30, a day after the ruling.