St. Kitts & Nevis – July 30, 2009 (WINN):  

Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Denzil Douglas says the Boundaries Commission report injunction and contempt of court proceedings against two members of Parliament are at attempt at ‘political harassment’ by the People’s Action Movement.

 “It is a political trial brought specially by PAM in order to create instability in the country and to delay the calling of elections so that they would have time to produce their certificates of renunciation that is required by law,” Dr. Douglas told the press on the steps of the Basseterre Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon.

“I make the point further that in pursuit of what is a political agenda by PAM, I have been advised that the lawyers for the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, the lawyers for the Supervisor of Elections, the lawyers for the Boundaries Commission have all been served recently by affidavits by Richards Caines and by Sir Kennedy Simmonds, the former Prime Minister of the previous PAM Administration.  Again it emphasizes all this is in pursuit of a political agenda.”

The Prime Minister said that the presence of opposition politicians from other jurisdictions on the PAM’s legal team was further evidence that the matter was political.

“They are in fact using two overseas politicians.  Mia Mottley who is in fact the Leader of the Opposition in Barbados, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition Party in Parliament in Trinidad and Tobago [Kamla Persad-Bissesar].  It is clear to me that this is a serious case of political harassment, and I specially would wish for the opposition politicians from overseas to be advised that they should not allow themselves unwittingly to be used by PAM to destabilize our country, St. Kitts and Nevis,” he said.

Having made an appearance in the Basseterre High Court on Wednesday, the Prime Minister emerged from the building, stood on the steps surrounded by his legal team and hands raised in the air greeted a small crowd of cheering supporters.  He told the press that he had come as a show of support for his Attorney General and Minister Liburd. 

At rallies in recent weeks, both the Prime Minister’s St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party and the PAM have been inviting their supporters to don party colours and come down to Independence Square, across the street from the Courthouse.

WINN FM asked Dr. Douglas if inviting supporters to wait outside the courthouse was not fuelling the perception that the matter was political.

“We did not bring this matter to Court,” he responded swiftly. “We have been brought to Court, and our supporters have come to Court with my Attorney General and my Minister of Agriculture the elected Representative for Consistency Number Eight the Honourable Cedric Roy Liburd we have asked our people to lend political support to our own colleagues who are under political trial here in the Court.”

But speaking to WINN FM afterwards, Lead Counsel for the PAM’s Legal Team Ms Mia Mottley QC dismissed the Prime Minister allegations that the case was political.

“In respect of the affidavit filed by Richard Caines that simply goes to the procedure as it relates to how Government functions, how Cabinet functions; it speaks to no facts in the issue, but simply the procedure of Government and Cabinet, and only a former Minster of Cabinet could have spoken in Court to that evidence, as to that procedure,” she said.

“As it relates to Sir Kennedy Simmonds we plead in our documents the preamble to Constitution which speaks to free and fair elections.  St. Kitts is one of the few Constitutions that have a preamble that refers to free and fair elections.  The law is, is that you must give a broad and purposive construction to the Constitution and the preamble, and in order therefore for the Court to have evidence as to what would have been in the minds of the framers of the Constitution, there was no better person suited to be able to speak to that than Sir Kennedy, in relation to the Constitution which St. Kitts has from 1983.  So it doesn’t relate to any political matters of today whatsoever,” she asserted.

She declined to respond directly to the Prime Minister’s comment about her involvement in the case.

“Well I didn’t know that I could be admitted to the St. Kitts Bar simply by reason of being Leader of the Opposition, nor Mrs. Bissesar.  Suffice it to say that we are Attorneys-at-Law and that this matter to the extent that it is political, it is because it relates to boundaries, and you cannot at the last minute, having not had boundaries changes for twenty six years seek to change boundaries in a way that defy procedural fairness, and that is the simple position that the Constitutional motion and the judicial review is about there.  So I’m not getting into those broader issues.  I let those balls pass outside the off stump,” she said with a smile.

“We are here as Counsel, we could only have been admitted to the Bar in St. Kitts as Counsel, and that is what we are seeking to do,” Mottley said.    

Reprinted with the kind permission of Winnfm.com

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