BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – PRIME MINISTER Dr. the Hon. Denzil L. Douglas has accused the People’s Action Movement (PAM) of levelling “veiled threats” against the Head of State, Governor General, His Excellency Sir Cuthbert Sebastian.
For the past couple of weeks, the PAM has taken issue with constituency boundary changes outlined in the Electoral Boundaries Commission Report for St. Christopher and Nevis and has taken the matter before the court.
PAM, to date, has filed a total of three injunctions and has begun contempt of court proceedings against the Attorney General, Dr. the Hon. Dennis Merchant. The first injunction sought to prevent the report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission from being tabled in Parliament while the second and third are to prevent the Supervisor of Elections and the Electoral Commission from enforcing the new boundaries during the upcoming general elections, and also to prevent His Excellency Sir Cuthbert from signing the proclamation into law.
Dr. Douglas, while speaking at a press conference on Friday (June 10) morning, explained that he found rather interesting the fact that the latest injunction names not only Member of Parliament, the Hon. Shawn K. Richards but also Leader of the PAM, Lindsay Grant.
“What is very interesting, I am told, is that this latest injunction now has Lindsay Grant as one of the claimants. Now, all along, we thought that this was a matter to do with the Commission’s Report not being advanced to the stage where it is, and so Shawn Richards, of course, as a Member of Parliament, would have done this. All of a sudden we now see, according to what I’ve been told, that this new injunction given to the Governor General has enjoined Lindsay Grant, the Leader of the People’s Action Movement, with Shawn Richards, injuncting the Governor General from doing something he has already done. And this is clearly a situation of creating frustration to the smooth process of calling our general elections.”
Particularly disconcerting, the PM expressed, is what he described as the PAM’s perceptible “veiled threat of imprisonment” against the Head of State, the Governor General.
“What I think though is very troubling to me as Prime Minister, is what appears to be a veiled threat of imprisonment of His Excellency the Governor General; because I understand that one of the documents said that if you fail to comply with the terms of this order, proceedings may be commenced against you, …The Governor General this is being referred to for contempt of court and you may be liable to be imprisoned.
“And this is in fact coming under the name of Lindsay Grant and Shawn Richards threatening to have the court order His Excellency in jail…to prevent him from doing something that he has already done. And so this veiled threat of His Excellency to be imprisoned is what has brought me here to speak this morning to the press, because I think this is now being taken a little too far to involve His Excellency, the Governor General. And this veiled threat of imprisonment…imprisonment of Her Majesty, because the Governor General represents Her Majesty the Queen as Head of State of the country of St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Richards, in speaking exclusively with SKNVibes, expressed that the Prime Minister’s accusations are misdirected as he is the one who has jeopardised the office of the Governor General and not the PAM as claimed.
“The People’s Action Movement has not made any threat against the Governor General. The Prime Minister is the one who has put the Governor General in the situation that he is in. The Prime Minister is aware of the fact that there is an injunction which prevented Parliament from moving to use the Boundaries Commission Report. However, he still took the Report before Parliament and had the Report acted upon. As such, he is the one, along with the Attorney General, who has brought the office of the Governor General into disrepute.”
Early this morning, legal counsel for both the PAM and the Government are to appear before the Basseterre High Court of Justice where the legal battle will continue.
