Elections petitions to be heard by Trinidadian judge

The latest judge to be assigned to the elections petitions matter presided over his first hearing last week.

Trinidadian Stanley John, a retired court of appeal judge, who sat in this capacity in both the Bahamas and Trinidad, was specially appointed by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) for the upcoming trial which looks into allegations of serious irregularities in the 2015 general elections.

It became necessary for a new judge to be appointed in the matter after Justice Esco Henry recused herself last December after an administrative mishap. Henry wanted to ensure that the public saw that justice was done, and so she stepped down from the proceedings.

“We are quite pleased to have a new judge appointed so that we can move ahead with the matter expeditiously,” said Carlos James, one of the lawyers for the third respondents in the case, the Unity Labour Party (ULP) candidates for Central Leeward and North Windward, Sir Louis Straker and Montgomery Daniel.

The trial is set to begin on February 11.

James confirmed that lawyers René Baptiste, and Duane Daniel have joined the legal team representing the third respondents, and that lead counsel “Grahame Bollers is very much still in the matter.”
Bollers had previously been on medical leave, which caused the trial dates of December 3 to 7, 2018 to be vacated.

Justice Henry had ordered that new legal counsel be obtained by the third respondents, and it is in following this order that Daniel as well as Baptiste have been retained.

James stated that he was not going to go into the medical details of his co-counsel, but that Bollers remains on record.

James said that during the hearing last week Thursday, the lawyers for the petitioners, the New Democratic Party (NDP) candidates Benjamin Exeter and Lauron Baptiste, made two applications.

Significantly, one of these applications was to seek leave to allow an additional witness statement by one Sharon Morris-Cummings to be admitted into evidence.

“Essentially one of the grounds which we raised as to why at this late stage we should not be having any new witness statements being filed, is that it is going to further delay the hearing,” James explained, while noting that both applications were denied by the judge because of the lateness of the application.

“We had the chance of filing witness statements in this matter for quite a while,” he also noted.

Kay Bacchus-Baptiste, Senator for the New Democratic Party (NDP) and one of the lawyers for the petitioners in the matter, indicated that the lateness of the witness statement was for the reason that, “The witness did not intend to give evidence because of her job, that’s the reason that she gave. She resided in Trinidad, and because of her job she did not want to give evidence in a political matter.”

Both of the lawyers on either side of the matter are optimistic that the new judge will be prepared for February 11 when the trial date is set.

The Petitioners, candidates for the NDP in the 2015 general elections each filed on December 31, 2015, petitions alleging irregularities on the day of voting.

Baptiste and Exeter are calling for the court to hold that the results of the election in North Windward and Central Leeward are void because of these irregularities.

In 2016, Justice Brian Cottle threw out the petitions, ruling that they were improperly filed. However, a ruling of the Court of Appeal of the ECSC restarted the entire court process, after the appeal by the NDP was upheld on the grounds that a statement made by Cottle had the appearance of alleged bias.

The Court of Appeal ruling in March of 2017 had stated that the matter should be dealt with expeditiously.

Following this, the court was engaged with a motion filed by the petitioners to have all 15 ballot boxes in the Central Leeward constituency inspected. This was dismissed on February 27, 2018 by Justice Henry who ruled that it would be an abuse of the process of the court because a similar motion was dismissed by Justice Cottle in 2015.