BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A public apology demanded by the PM Dr. Douglas seems not to be forthcoming, with both Lindsay Grant and Mark Brantley refusing to do so, citing that such is unnecessary.
Late last year, the Basseterre High Court of Justice found that the then Attorney General, Dr. Dennis Merchant, was in contempt of court. Dr. Merchant’s legal team appealed the high court’s decision and earlier this week, during the local sitting of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, a judgment was read which vindicated him.
Following the reading of the judgment, Dr. Douglas and lead counsel, Anthony Astaphan QC, called for both leader of the People’s Action Movement, Lindsay Grant and the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Hon. Mark Brantley to apologise for and or retract statements they had made earlier asking for Merchant to resign his position as Attorney General.
Dr. Douglas (as reported by his Press Secretary) expressed, “It is really a pity that the opposition at the time, used in my opinion, a situation to condemn my former Attorney General, basically humiliating him and I really think that he deserves an apology, not only from the People’s Action Movement (PAM) Leader (Mr. Lindsay Grant), but also from the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Mark Brantley.”
Astaphan’s comments, according to the PM’s Press Secretary were, “They need to hang their heads in shame, retract their demands for his resignation and immediately apologise publicly not only to Dr. Merchant, but for misleading the people of St. Kitts and Nevis about what actually transpired. I think more importantly is the complete vindication was that the judges were very clear that there was no basis for contempt.”
Grant, via a press release indicated that he has no intention of apologizing and Brantley, in an exclusive interview with SKNVibes expressed similar sentiments.
“I think the Prime Minister is misguided for saying that there ought to be an apology for asking the Attorney General to do the right thing and to resign his position of Attorney General and Minister of Justice while he stood convicted for contempt of court. Whatever the court of appeal may now have said, at the time when that call was made,…he, as the Attorney General, stood convicted of contempt of court and that in his position, it was the correct thing to do to step aside.”
Brantley said he is not surprised that the Prime Minister is now, in hindsight, calling for an apology but reiterated that he will offer no apology.
Social activist and educator, Washington ‘Washie’ Archibald lent his voice to the debate and explained that he doesn’t see that either Grant or Brantley was wrong in calling for Merchant to “step down”.
“In any other country he would have had to step down. Once you get this blemish on your character, you step down until the matter is resolved. It is a decent think to do. It is done in American, in Britain, wherever there is proper democracy,that is the way it is done. Brantley didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t call for anything wrong. What Brantley was asking for is something that should have been done.”
