Judge agrees COP election must be postponed

A High Court judge in San Fernando yesterday agreed that the elections should be postponed.

This, after Justice Ricky Rahim began hearing an injunction filed by a COP member on Thursday against the holding of the elections, on the grounds that there was no national executive committee in the party due to the number of resignations that took place this week.

Interim political leader Dr Anirudh Mahabir, general secretary Clyde Weatherhead and deputy political leader Lorraine Pouchet all resigned on Tuesday.

The contenders for the political leader post in the elections are Nicole Dyer-Griffith, who was present in court, former PP government minister Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan and the party’s former chairman, Sharon Gopaul- McNicols.

Already engaging the High Court is a lawsuit filed by the COP member Kirt Francis on August 7, against Dyer- Griffith’s being fit to contest the post due to her not being a member in good standing, having rejoined the party in February. The hearing of that lawsuit has not yet been assigned to a judge.

At yesterday’s hearing, Justice Rahim urged attorney Lester Chariah for Francis; attorney Christian Chandler representing Dyer-Griffith and attorneys David Mark Kidney and Wayne Beharry representing chairman Jamieson Bahadur to discuss the issue with a view to arriving at an amicable resolution.

The injunction was filed against Bahadur but Christian’s appearance with Dyer-Griffith yesterday, was for seeking the court’s permission to have her joined as an interested party to the proceedings.

This was granted.

The case was stood down for the attorneys to talk and all except for Chandler consented to postpone the elections.

Justice Rahim said the court must ask the objective question of whether the risk of injustice to Dyer-Griffith is greater than the claimant who, on affidavit, pleaded that he represented 42,000 COP members.

Rahim said that the issues raised in the substantive lawsuit was of greater interest to the general membership of the party than any individual claim to political office.

“The claim lies with ensuring the constitution of the party is fulfilled and that office holders are legitimately accepted,” Rahim said.

“The court considers the hardships of interested third party (Dyer- Griffith) and is not persuaded that these are greater than the injustice of the claimants.” He went on to state that all but one member of the election committee had resigned which rendered the managing of an election impossible.

Dyer-Griffith’s attorney did not sign the order which mandates that the election for political leader of the COP is hereby postponed.

The order further states that the national executive of the COP will meet on or before September 4 and that the national executive shall consider the applications for membership of the 35 members who resigned.