The Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom-based Privy Council is to rule soon on the now 14-year-old Trafigura matter involving former Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, and other senior members of the People s National Party (PNP).
On Monday the committee reserved its judgment following arguments from attorney representing the PNP officials, Alexis Robinson, and the attorney representing the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on whether the PNP officials should give testimony in the case in open court or in secret.
While a date was not given for the ruling to be handed down by the UK Privy Council, the court said it will consider the arguments and later issue its decision
Fraud accused Ruel Reid (left) and Professor Fritz Pinnock.
Former Education Minister Ruel Reid and Professor Fritz Pinnock are pressing ahead with their challenge of the Financial Investigations Division Act under which they were arrested on fraud allegations, in 2019.
Senior attorney Hugh Wildman made the disclosure today after Chester Crooks the chief parish judge for Kingston and St Andrew declined to dismiss the fraud case against the men.
Wildman had argued before Crooks late last year that the case against ex-Senator Reid and Fritz Pinnock, who is president of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), should be dismissed as the FID Act doesn’t empower the body to make arrests.
Dr Lloyd Barnett, correctly referred to in a recent Gleaner editorial as “a lawyer and constitutional scholar”, has impactfully alerted us in an article in the Sunday Gleaner to the longstanding reality that: “An important factor that must be taken into account is that the experience of many countries is that it is very difficult to obtain a majority vote of the electorate for constitutional changes, especially if a major political party is opposed to the change. It is also the experience that, where non-controversial as well as controversial issues are put to the electorate (for example, in a referendum), there is likely to be a generally negative vote so that the non-controversial matters suffer as a result.”