by kladmin | December 8th, 2009
St. Kitts & Nevis – December 7, 2009 (WINN):
Agreements withdrawn, injunctions imposed and another request for a Judge’s recusal. These things all happened in the Basseterre High Court Monday afternoon in less than an hour.
In granting permission for a judicial review into the work of the Constituency Boundaries Commission a week and a half ago, Justice Francis Belle said he was not minded to grant an injunction to stop the tabling of any report from the Commission in Parliament before the matter was ruled upon. He said he would grant no injunction unless one was necessary, but asked for a mutual undertaking from both sides that no steps be taken that would affect the proceedings, until Court had made a decision in the case.
At that time Justice Belle warned that if the undertaking was breached, everything would change, and “the coercive powers of the Court would be exercised.”
And Monday afternoon it did change.
Counsel with the Government’s legal team, Dr. Henry Stogumber Browne notified the Court that his clients would be withdrawing the agreement to preserve the status quo.
Justice Belle said he was left with no choice but to impose an injunction, at which point Government Counsel Mr. Arundranath Gosai rose and informed him that the team would be applying for him to recuse himself from the case.
Justice Belle indicated that he would not hear the application for the recusal until the injunction was prepared, signed and served.
The injunction which was then prepared and read out in the Court essentially bars until further notice, the Boundaries Commission from continuing to meet, the submission of the report to the Governor General, the use of the report, its tabling in Parliament, the passage of a proclamation based on it, and prohibits electoral officials from conducting any elections using new boundaries coming out of such a report.
The respondents in the matter are: the Constituency Boundaries Commission, the Electoral Commission, the Supervisor of Elections, The Governor General, The Speaker of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister and the Attorney General.
Media liaison with the Government’s Legal Team, Lawyer Sylvester Anthony, explained to the press that there had been a mutual undertaking that both sides do nothing to impede the progress of the case, but said his team had come to believe that the lawyers for the other side were doing just that by deliberately delaying the matter. He said that the undertaking could not be one-sided and if the claimant’s lawyers were not going to adhere to the agreement, then his team did not feel obliged to do so either.
Speaking to WINN FM afterwards Ms Constance Mitcham, legal counsel for the claimants dismissed the notion that her team was stalling. She charged that the Government’s lawyers had a pattern of emailing submissions to her and her colleagues late at night when they were likely sleeping, resulting in their having little time to review them for a morning Court session. That she said, gave the impression that the team was delaying.
Earlier in the day, Justice Belle had given the green light to the claimants to apply for transcripts of all meetings of the Boundaries Commission.
After the injunction was read out in Court by the Judge Monday afternoon, the Government’s legal team requested seven days to respond to the application for more transcripts.
Lawyer Anthony explaining why after accusing the other side of deliberate delays his team was now asking for time, said that there was simply no way the recordings could be transcribed by one person any sooner than that. They were granted seven days to prepare, and are to return to Court next week Monday morning.
Justice Belle will hear the application for recusal at that time.
Reprinted with the kind permission of Winnfm.
www.winnfm.com
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