Letters to the Court from the Respondents’ Lawyers
As you know, we are not the only ones who believe the judgement is flawed. The lawyers for the Respondents also think so and have written to the Registrar of the High Court saying that the decision is flawed and urging that Justice Stanley John fix it by giving additional reasons for his decision!
This is extraordinary! The people who claimed they won the petitions cases are now complaining that the decision of the Judge in respect of the North Windward constituency case, is seriously flawed!
In a letter dated March 22, 2019, (i.e. the day after the judgement), counsel Joseph A. Delves wrote to the Registrar of the High Court saying that the decision did not deal with significant evidence presented by the petitioners at the trial and suggesting that the problems with the judgement be corrected before an appeal is launched!
Five days later, on March 27, 2019, not having had a response from the Court, Mr. Delves wrote a second time to enquire whether their letter had been received by Acting Justice Stanley John and when his supplementary reasons would be given.
So, you see the Respondents’ lawyers in the North Windward constituency case are very concerned about the judgement in which they say they won. They were very anxious and could not wait even a week for the Court to reply to their first letter!
They had to write again! It would seem; that they were anxious to have the Judge write additional reasons for his decision to fix the problems with the judgement that they had identified before an appeal was filed by the Petitioners! What are they afraid of?
Well, they are probably even more worried today, because the Court finally replied to their letters basically saying that Acting Justice Stanley John was no longer a Judge of the Court as his appointment ended on 21st March 2019 (the day he gave his judgement) and that he had been informed of their letter.
So, the Registrar confirmed that the Judge was no longer was a judge of the Court. This means that he could no longer do anything as a judge in the cases!
The Judge himself had made it clear during the trial of the petitions that he had only until March 21, 2019 to complete the matter, and when he finished his oral judgement in the Court on that day, he said that this brought the matter to an end.
Further, on the website of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court there is publicly available information showing that Justice Stanley John was appointed as a Judge only until March 21, 2019.
Knowing this, the lawyers for the Respondents still felt it was proper and useful to write to the Court to ask the Judge to continue to act as judge in the matter by writing additional reasons for his decision to correct problems they saw in the judgement.
I will note that the letter from the Registrar of the High Court replying to Mr. Delves’ letters is dated April 1, 2019. However, it was only delivered to our lawyers on April 3, 2019. Why the delay, especially as this was such as urgent matter?
LETTERS ATTACHED
Letter.Delves
Letter.Delves 2
