Ruling tomorrow in teacup brawl lawsuit

JUSTICE Charmaine Pemberton will tomorrow deliver her ruling on whether Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley should be joined as an interested party to the lawsuit filed by MP Chandresh Sharma against the DPP’s failure to prosecute Rowley. In closing arguments yesterday, Reginald Armorer SC submitted to Pemberton that Rowley had an interest in order to preserve DPP’s Geoffrey Henderson’s decision that he (Rowley) should not be charged with assaulting Sharma in Parliament. 

Rowley is not named as a respondent in Sharma’s lawsuit, but the Judicial Review Act allows for an interested party to join judicial review proceedings if the outcome of the court’s decision directly affects them. Before Justice Pemberton in the Third Civil Court in San Fernando is an application by Sharma for a review of Henderson’s decision to refuse to consent to lay the assault charge. Sharma claimed he was assaulted by Rowley in the Parliament’s tearoom when the latter allegedly threw a teacup at him.