PAM affidavit withdrawn from boundaries case

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AN affidavit filed by Chesley Hamilton, former Chairperson of the opposition party People’s Action Movement (PAM), was withdrawn before the Basseterre High Court yesterday (Aug. 18). 

Hamilton filed three affidavits from July 13 to August 14 as support to the claimants (PAM) in its civil suit brought against the Attorney-General, Constituency Boundaries Commission (CBC), Governor-General, Electoral Commission and the Supervisor of Elections.
His first two filed affidavits appeared to be transcripts of statements made by the Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas, in July of this year at a press conference and National Assembly. 

The third affidavit referred to a legal case in Trinidad and Tobago, showing how the late submission of a required report was dealt with in that country. The affidavit claimed that Hamilton would be an authority on the matter, as he was an “expert of constitutional law in T&T”.

Without asking the witness any questions, counsel for the respondents Anthony Astaphan QC expressed doubt to the Judge about Hamilton’s expertise on constitutional law, as well as the relevance of such information to the hearing.

PAM’s Counsel immediately moved to withdraw the affidavit, giving consideration to the objections by the respondents. The withdrawal was welcomed by the Government’s lawyers and was described as “quite proper”.

Speaking to SKNVibes following the hearing, counsel for the Government Sylvester Anthony informed that the respondents would also be objecting to Hamilton’s first two affidavits in order to challenge the value that should be placed on them.

“The third affidavit was an affidavit in which Mr. Hamilton purported to be an expert on Trinidad law based on the fact that he spent six months at the law school in Trinidad when he was doing his conversion course to be able to practise law in St. Kitts.

“So, we objected to that on the basis that he was not an expert. Our view was that it was not relevant, but our point was that he was not in a position to be the one to put this before the Court,” Anthony stated.

Counsel for PAM Constance Mitchum said that the third affidavit arose as discussions about the timing for the CBC report being submitted were brought to light. She informed that the affidavit was seeking to show what happened in Trinidad and Tobago when there was a similar situation of “a report from the CBC was late”. 

According to Mitchum, that country was able to “cure their problem by passing something they called a Validation Act to validate the late report”. 

In response to the move to withdraw the third Hamilton affidavit, Mitchum stressed that it “was just an idea of assisting the Court in showing how it was dealt with in another country, but it’s not really vital to our case”. 

Hamilton was the third and final witness brought by PAM, and was the only witness in the entire court proceedings who has not  been cross-examined.