Abbi pulls TUCO into court today

THE TRINBAGO Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO) has to appear in the High Court today at 1 pm to respond to allegations by Young Queen’s 2005, Abbi Blackman-Khalabi, as to why she was excluded from tonight’s Calypso Monarch finals. Court documents were to have been served on the organisation before 6.30 pm yesterday informing them of the decision.

Blackman yesterday made a last ditch effort seeking an injunction to stop the finals or be included as a contestant, alleging that she was wrongfully left out. She is contenting that she “possible got higher marks than some of the competitions who were selected for tonight’s finals.” In an unusual hearing yesterday before Justice David Meyes in the Chamber court, Hall of Justice, an administrative ruling was made to have TUCO appear in court to respond to the allegations.

The calypso finals, part of Dimanche Gras, is scheduled to start at seven o’clock tonight. Attorneys for Blackman, Farid Scoon and Thomas Cunningham instructed by Peter Taylor contacted the court’s registrar at 11 pm on Friday night giving notice of their intention to approach the court for the injunction. The attorneys waited for most of yesterday before getting an ex-parte hearing before Justice Meyers at 4 pm.

The hearing lasted 20 minutes. Scoon told Sunday Newsday, Blackman is alleging that she was wrongfully judged and that TUCO has not followed its own published rules in the semi-finals of the contest, resulting in her exclusion in tonight’s finals. He said Blackman was also not named as a semi-finalist at Skinner Park on January 30, but was later included, after she discovered errors in the judge’s scores during preliminary judging. He said TUCO relented having “recognised that in fact they had made errors in the calculation in the scores and allowed her to participate.”