Sen. Frederick ‘expected’ court to deny application

New Democratic Party (NDP) senator Vynnette Frederick says she “expected” her application to the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal for permission to appeal to the London-based Privy Council to be denied.{{more}}

The Court of the Appeal, at a sitting in Kingstown yesterday, denied permission for Frederick, Senator Linton Lewis, parliamentary representative for South Leeward Nigel Stephenson and Patricia Marva Chance to take their appeals, in relation to election cases first filed in 2011, to the Privy Council.

“I expected it to be denied. We will now make applications directly to the Privy Council,” Frederick told SEARCHLIGHT. “As far as I am aware, that is being worked on straightaway.”

Frederick, Lewis, Stephenson and Chance were seeking permission to appeal May 31, 2012 decisions of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, which went in favour of the government ministers Dr Douglas Slater, Cecil McKie and Clayton Burgin and Chief Magistrate Sonya Young.

The Appeal Court had upheld Justice Gertel Thom’s decision on November 15, 2011, to refuse leave to Lewis, Frederick and Stephenson to seek Judicial Review of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Colin Williams’ decisions to take over and discontinue private criminal complaints they had filed against Slater, McKie and Burgin, on January 11, 2011 at the Serious Offences Court.

The Chief Magistrate was successful at the Appeal Court in her application that the leave granted to the NDP senator Vynnette Frederick, for judicial review of the Chief Magistrate’s decision to refuse to issue summonses in relation to two private complaints brought in January 2011 against Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, be set aside.

Chance had sought permission to appeal at the Privy Council, the decision of the Appeal Court to uphold the DPP’s decision to discontinue private criminal complaints she brought against Afi Jack.

Counsel for the government ministers and the Chief Magistrate, Grahame Bollers, told SEARCHLIGHT yesterday that he had not yet received the written judgement, so he did not wish to comment.

SEARCHLIGHT also made several attempts to contact Keith Scotland, lawyer for the opposition parliamentarians, but was unsuccessful.