BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – WITH many sitting at the edge of their seats anxiously awaiting the outcome of the ongoing Court case surrounding the pending Motion of No Confidence (MoNC), a lawyer for the claimants has expressed that they are somewhat disappointed in the length of time which has to elapse before it can be heard.
Counsel for both claimants and defendants appeared before the Basseterre High Court on Thursday (April 18), where it was expected that the application for injunctive relief to debar the government from pursuing its legislative agenda before the MoNC is tabled and debated would have been heard.
However, following a number of verbal submissions to the Court, that application was withdrawn and a decision was taken to have another related matter – application to strike out the originating motion – heard on July 11 and 12, 2013.
This was due mainly to the unavailability of the defendants’ counsel at an earlier date.
“The judge explained that he has a full calendar…we indicated that we would be available next week and Douglas Mendes S.C. showed a number of days in May which we would be available. But it would seem as though the government’s senior counsel that they got from overseas, in addition to Dr. Henry Browne QC etc., they have now gotten Anthony Astaphan S.C. who is not available before June.
“Lord Goldsmith was quite firm that he is before the Supreme Court in England until June. It would seem as though senior counsel for the government can’t hear a constitutional matter in St. Kitts before June, and so we have had to accommodate that. On our hand, our senior counsel could have met at anytime…,” said Vincent Byron Jr.
According to Byron, the claimants are experiencing some disappointment, as they had hoped that the matter would have been heard before its scheduled date.
“I must say that our claimants are somewhat disappointed that the government lawyers could not see it fit to have heard this very important and urgent constitutional matter earlier in June or May, and that they have found counsel who can’t hear this important constitutional matter before June.
“…and we have acceded to that and we are disappointed that the people of St. Kitts and Nevis, who are very interested in seeing our democratic traditions upheld in the Court to protect those, would have to wait until July to get a determination one way or another.”
