Justice of Appeal Rishi Persaud yesterday refused to grant an interim stay of the High Court judgments on the no-confidence motion against government given the “strict” timelines that have been set for the hearing of the applications filed on behalf of the Attorney General (AG) and private citizen Compton Reid.
“I don’t see the need …the absolute urgency for the stay at this time,” Justice Persaud said towards the end of a scheduled hearing when Attorney General Basil Williams SC told the court that in asking for an interim stay he was relying on the ruling of the then acting Chancellor Carl Singh in the Desmond Morian case. Morian, a PPP member, initiated a legal challenge of the High Court’s ruling that APNU+AFC ministers Winston Felix and Keith Scott couldn’t hold seats in the National Assembly as non-elected Members of Parliament (MPs).
A hearing was held yesterday to deal with two summonses that had to be refiled by Williams after errors were detected as well as Reid’s summons for a stay, which was filed last week.
Williams has applied to the court for orders pending the appeal of the decision in the action he brought against Speaker Dr. Barton Scotland and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and the decision in the action initiated by chartered accountant Christopher Ram.
Each application asks the court to grant an order for an interim stay of the effect of the judgment and order(s) of Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire until the hearing and determination of the Summons filed; an order for a stay of the effect of the judgment and order(s) until the hearing and determination of the appeal filed; a conservatory order preserving the status quo ante that the President, Cabinet and all Ministers of the Government remain in office until the hearing and determination of the appeal; and such further or other order as the Court may deem just.
Reid’s application regards the Chief Justice’s decision that the vote of former MP Charrandass Persaud was valid even though he was disqualified from being a parliamentarian given that he had Canadian citizenship. Scotland, Persaud, Williams, APNU General Secretary Joseph Harmon and Jagdeo are listed as the respondents.
Yesterday the court spent more than half an hour addressing “housekeeping” matters and agreeing on the timelines for the filing of written submissions in the three cases. It was later agreed that the parties in all the matters will return to court on March 15th at 1.30 pm to make oral submissions. During the hearing, Harmon’s attorney, Roysdale Forde, asked that his client be added as a party in the Ram matter. Based on the mixed reactions of the lawyers in that matter, he was advised to make an application in writing.
Williams submitted to the court that as a matter of record, he was asking the court for an interim stay and was relying on the Morian case, where an interim stay was granted pending the hearing of the application.
The attorney for Jagdeo, Anil Nandlall, interjected, opposing Williams’ application. “We’ve not been heard… we have to argue… ,” he said before adding that he would like to have the opportunity to put his submissions in writing.
Williams, in response, told the judge that it is “entirely” within his discretion and stressed that the issue is a serious constitutional matter. Nandlall responded by saying “we’re still within the timeframe.”
Williams reiterated that in the case he cited, there was an application for a stay and an interim stay pending the hearing of the application was granted. “We’re asking for the court in all the circumstances for the conservatory order and the stay…,” the AG said.
After listening to the brief exchange, Justice Persaud informed the court that having regard to the strict time limits that were set earlier, he was “not minded to do that [and] grant a stay of anything. I am not minded to do that at this stage because we are still well within the time….”
Speaking to reporters after the hearing had concluded, Williams insisted that in addition to the stay, government wants the status quo ante to be maintained.
Nandlall, in an invited comment to the media, said that the proceedings have become academic. “They have lost their efficacy because on the 21st of March the constitutional time frame would have expired and there is nothing that the court can do after that. The court can’t reverse something that would have occurred already. So, I think the court proceedings have already begun to be a waste of time. It is unfortunate for me to say so but that’s the reality,” he noted.
Asked why he objected to Williams’ application for an interim stay, Nandlall informed that there was “no basis” for this to be granted. “The appeal has no likelihood of success. You can only get a stay if you have an appeal that has some prospect of success. There is no appeal here that has any prospect of success. The appeals themselves, the document themselves, are defective and we try to get them corrected and they were not corrected,” he added.
Nandlall pointed out, too, that none of mistakes which were identified in the applications were corrected, “So the appeals by themselves are all defective. All of them. The mistakes that were identified are still there…In fact they have been multiplied this time,” he said.
Justice Persaud was forced to abandon a scheduled hearing last Wednesday after discovering errors in the summonses filed by the AG. Those errors were corrected and the summonses refiled the following day.
The vote from Persaud in favour of a PPP/C-sponsored no-confidence motion against the APNU+AFC administration tipped the scales 33 to 32 in its favour. Consequently, Scotland ruled that the motion was carried. Government accepted the ruling but subsequently asked him to reconsider and reverse it. However, Scotland declined and indicated that the court should be approached for redress.
Government has said that it plans to take the matter all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
