Desperate and Gasping for breath
(April 23, 2011) I am obliged to respond to an article that appeared in the Labour Spokesman of April 2nd under the caption “COURT OF APPEAL TO HEAR CEDRIC LIBURD VS. EUGENE HAMILTON GREEN CARD MATTER IN ANTIGUA IN MAY”
A reading of the caption shows the deception of Cedric Liburd and the propagation of that deception by the Attorney General and the Douglas led Labour Regime. This matter had never been about Green Card as the petitioner, Attorney General, Government and the author of that article would have you believe as you will after reading that article.
This matter which engages the time of our Attorney General and which has already cost the country over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars is about citizenship and any reference to Green Card in the petition was merely to describe the Green Card as a travel document.
The article credits no Author but references statements as being confirmed by Crown Counsel Mr. Arudranuath Gossai
At the outset of this response I wish to state that I have no intention to waste my valuable time on responding back and forth to authors, petitioners or Attorney Generals’ gasping for breath, since it has become very clear to me from the results of the General Elections that the vast majority of persons living in my constituency have delivered their verdict.
At paragraph 5 of the publication, Crown Counsel Gossai is attributed as having said “Green Card matter is set to become a test case in the British Commonwealth” and at paragraph 6 “we have not come across a case where the court has had to decide on a Green Card issue”.
Is this matter really about Green Card? Readers you decide.
Gasping for breath after the petitioner lied to the court and after the Attorney General intervened and engaged a high priced lawyer from Jamaica in Dr. Barnet who appeared in the matter as a junior to Delano Bart QC and who has been paid thirty four thousand EC dollars per day with scarce resources from a near bankrupt Treasury, the petitioner appealed the decision of Her Ladyship Justice Hariprashad-Charles and so too did the Attorney General, although they really do not know what they are appealing and neither do I.
The petition:
In his petition filed on February 5th 2010, Cedric Liburd stated as fact in paragraph 10, that I accepted and travelled on foreign travel documents and a passport issued by the Government of the United States of America.
In paragraph 11 Cedric Liburd stated that “The acquisition of a foreign travel document (including a Green Card) and/ or passport of the United States required me, the first respondent to swear an oath of allegiance and/ or acknowledge his allegiance, obedience and/ or adherence to a foreign power or state.
In paragraph 12 Cedric Liburd stated that I the First Respondent travelled from the Federation on more than one passport, including foreign travel documents and an American Passport
In paragraph 14 Cedric Liburd listed the passport numbers as A055211598, BP001812 and 00158215
In paragraph 15 Cedric Liburd stated that the foreign travel documents and/ or passports numbered A055211598 and 00158215 were not issued by the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis
AT THE TRIAL:
Dr. Browne as counsel for Cedric Liburd seemed in a quandary to make his case when he said at page 27 of the transcript that “The answer to the petition in no way demurs or joins issue with the fact that the first respondent is a permanent resident alien of the United States of America. Issue is joined, my lord, on the averment that he is a holder of a United States passport and I do now say, my lord, that averment must fail.”
What was Dr. Browne speaking about? There was no pleading in the petition about permanent resident alien or alien status.
Browne further stated at page 29 “So the averment, my lord, which evinced in the petition that the second passport was an issue, I seek to withdraw it if I can do that at this stage. But whether it is withdrawn or what ever word one uses, I am being very candid with your lordship that is not an issue in this case. So we wouldn’t waste time with that from my point of view”.
What was Dr. Browne talking about? Was he amending the petition? Could he amend the petition at that stage? What was he withdrawing? Was it the entire paragraph(s) and if not what specific words and from which paragraph was he seeking to withdraw if he could at that stage? Should he not have withdrawn the petition and cut costs?
As a witness Cedric Liburd was a disaster. By his admission he only made the decision the night before the trial that he was not pursuing the issue of passport even though his lawyer had known since May and had so advised him and even though the Attorney General as Intervener had known before issuing instructions to the Expert witness Ted Chiappari, several weeks before the trial date of July 23rd.
By his admission paragraphs 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15 of his petition are untrue. By his admission his personal knowledge is knowledge of others whom he cannot name.
Yet after admitting to the court that five paragraphs contained lies manufactured to deceive the court, he soldered on, taking the court on a fishing expedition and abusing the court process.
DECISION OF THE HIGH COURT:
Her Ladyship, Justice Hariprashad-Charles delivered her decision in which she held:
1. One cannot be a US Citizen and a Green Card holder at the same time and that the same pleading cannot imply two mutually exclusive statuses. The petitioner should have withdrawn the petition in light of the admission of his counsel that the averment in the petition regarding passport must fail
2. A party is bound by his pleadings unless he is allowed to amend them
3. A party may not raise a new ground of claim or include allegations of inconsistent facts. Such would require an amendment of pleadings
4. Evidence showed that I reside in St. Kitts and that I do not maintain lawful unrelinquished residence in the USA, despite my admission that I hold a Green Card
5. That my travels are facilitated by a passport issued by the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis
6. That as a Green Card holder I owe no greater obedience to the laws of the USA than any other foreign national or temporary visitor
7. That unlike the grant of Citizenship a Green Card holder is not required to take an oath of allegiance
8. That I was under no acknowledgement of allegiance obedience or adherence to any foreign power or state on nomination day and therefore qualified to be elected as a member of the National Assembly
THE PETITIONERS APPEAL
The petitioners appeal appears to highlight seventeen grounds. I say appears because they are not grounds of appeal to my mind for the most part as they do not reflect determinations made by her Ladyship and it is quite clear from what she held as stated above that Her Ladyship gave full consideration to the concerns of the Petitioner/Appellant.
His appeal fails from the very start as all seventeen grounds live or dies on the principle of alternative pleadings a claim that is being made in the first ground of appeal stated as follows: The learned Judge failed to appreciate the effect of pleadings in the alternative
Pleadings in what alternative? Cast your minds back to the determinations of her Ladyship that are listed as (2 and 3) above and you determine whether the judge has failed to answer the concerns of the appellant; In any event what is the alternative pleading that the petitioner is alluding to? I have already pointed out that the reference to Green Card in the petition was merely as a travel document for which I took an oath, which the petitioner as a witness said is untrue.
I will take this argument a bit further and ask you to answer whether a Green Card is a Travel Document as pleaded in the petition or is it an ID that indicates the Immigration Status of the holder? Is that not the very point being argued by the Intervener which is that the Green Card shows “status”? Perhaps it has not yet occurred to the appellants that they cases are conflicting. On the one hand the green card is a travel document and on the other hand it is an Immigration status.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S APPEAL
The Attorney General was the first to serve an appeal that was later amended to add six grounds made by the petitioner, which is a clear sign that both are working together.
The Attorney General went so far as include to as a Declaration/Order, words spoken by Her Ladyship “Obiter Dictum” not represented in the Decision as having been determined by the Judge. Her Ladyship mentioned in the penultimate paragraph under the heading ‘COSTS” “There was no need for the intervention by the Attorney Genaral. As far as I am concerned the petition raises no issues of Constitutional importance which calls for the interpretation of Section 28 (1) (a) of the Constitution. The section is clear an unambiguous. That said the Attorney General will bear his own costs.”
Appealing that seems to suggest that the Attorney General is not satisfied that the petitioner was not asked to pay costs to the Attorney General. I t also points to the fact the Attorney General does not appreciate that the Judge at the beginning of the trial made a ruling that the Attorney General has the right to intervene.
There is a fundamental difference between the “RIGHT” of the Attorney General upon which the Judge decided at the beginning of the trial and the “NEED” spoken “obiter dictum” in deciding on costs. One was a decision and the other was not, therefore what is in that to appeal?
It is also very clear that the petitioner at Ground “13” and the Attorney General as amended at Ground “G” are so incensed with this appeal that they have failed to read with any understanding what Her Ladyship has correctly stated since both of them working together have made it a Ground of Appeal.
What is that Ground? They wrote that “The learned Judge misdirected herself in holding that no case was cited to the effect that allegiance may be owed to a state by a non-citizen such as a person who travels on a passport of a foreign or who is so associated with a foreign state that he or she has benefits, privileges or protection of the foreign state and that there may be no such authority”
Since both these legal luminaries are well grounded in the Law I marvel at both of them transcribing that statement as a ground of appeal, as it is quite clear to me with my ordinary reading skills that their interpretation of what the Judge has written is a faulty interpretation. Her Ladyship is absolutely correct in her findings on that point
WHAT IS THE MOTIVE
What therefore in Cedric Liburd appealing and what is the Government of St. Kitts appealing? Willful waste of tax payers’ money should by punishable as a crime. This case is not about Green Card as they would like to public to believe, rather it is about a fishing expedition.
It is about ways to deprive the State of scarce resources that the Government thinks is better off in the hands of cronies. It is about harassing a legitimate parliamentarian who has defeated the machinery of the Douglas cabal. It is about using State power to bring citizens to their knees. It is about power that corrupts.
It is more about Douglas realizing that his Government is vulnerable as it only takes two members of his cabinet to cross the floor and he is history.
This case has never been about Green Card as some would have you believe.
