St John’s, Antigua: Sir Gerald Watt and his law partner Dr. David Dorsett are heading to the High Court again over a matter concerning the Antigua & Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC), according to a report in the Observer.
This time they are challenging the legality of an order by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer dated January 31, 2012 and published in the February 16 issue of the Official Gazette. In it the prime minister declares that he has “appointed December 22, 2011, as the day on which the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act of 2011 is deemed to have come into force.”
The Observer said that Sir Gerald and Dr. Dorsett are contending that the retroactive nature of the Prime Minister’s January 31 order is unconstitutional, as it is clearly meant to thwart the effect of Justice Jennifer Remy’s ruling a week earlier that the Prime Minister’s removal of Sir Gerald as ABEC chairman a year earlier was illegal, and therefore null and void.
This latest thickening of the ABEC plot comes less than a week after it came to light that the Prime Minister and his hand-picked replacement of Sir Gerald, Juno Samuel, are appealing against Justice Remy’s ruling that also found the Governor General to have acted unlawfully in the matter.
“What we find very troubling about this order,” Dr. Dorsett said yesterday, “is its timing and retroactive nature.” He recalled that when a final trial date was set for last November 22, the Spencer-led Government proceeded to push through Parliament the Amended Act before the trial date arrived, according to the Observer report.
“He went to Parliament and had passed on the 16th of November this bill which, when one reads it, clearly has no other purpose but to have Sir Gerald removed from his office under the guise of establishing a new commission…That was done on the 16th of November. Very shortly after on the 21st of November the same bill was ratified by the Senate . . . The very next day was the trial…The judge gave her decision on the 25th of January 2012. Not even a week passed, but within days, on the 31st of January, Mr. Baldwin Spencer signs an order to take effect on a date (December 22nd 2011) while the matter before the court was sub judice … What he is seeking to do by means of this order is to effectively set to nought the decision of the judge which was made after that date.”
Dr. Dorsett disclosed that he and Sir Gerald “have filed papers to have the court declare as a matter of urgency … as to the constitutionality of what has happened … We have served the chambers of the Attorney General. We have also served the chambers representing the Prime Minister and Mr. Juno Samuel, and we have also served the Prime Minister himself.”
The Observer reported that the Government has so far not commented on its decision to appeal Justice Remy’s recent judgment. There has also been no explanation from the Government regarding the Attorney General’s mysterious omission as a party to the appeal, since he was the first named respondent in the lawsuit brought by Sir Gerald.
The AG was representing the Governor General whose role in the purported removal of Sir Gerald has been judicially castigated.
