Govt mum on state of emergency

"Taken from our P O L I T I C S section."

Cabinet met for over four hours at Whitehall yesterday as it debated the impasse involving Chief Justice Sat Sharma, but it was tightlipped on what decisions, if any, were taken, especially if Government would declare a limited State of Emergency.

However, yesterday PNM sources argued that it would be political suicide to call any State of Emergency, which was being touted as the other option. “You declare a State of Emergency to restore normalcy. For example in July 1990 the whole society was traumatised and a State of Emergency was declared to bring dissidents in check and return law and order.

“In August 1995, (former House Speaker) Occah Seapaul was dismissing MPs with no regard for the standing orders or the law and Government would have found itself in a minority position in the House of Representatives. Government would have come to a crashing halt. (So there was need for a State of Emergency). But in this case the society is intact. So Government has to pay the costs and accept its loss,” sources said.

A constitutional expert also said yesterday that a State of Emergency was unnecessary because the security of the State was not under threat. “Nobody is threatened,” the expert stated. “Life is going on, the country is being run. No organ of the Government is being prevented from functioning,” the expert stated.

Asked whether the judiciary was in limbo because of the battle between the CJ and the Government, the expert said the judiciary was still functioning. “We may not like what is going on, but it (the judiciary) is still functional. Matters are being heard, including this one (the judical review applications relating to the CJ matter),” he said. The expert was asked whether the judiciary was overstepping its jurisdiction in the light of the fact that the Constitution empowers the DPP and the Commissioner of Police to make an arrest. Furthermore the source was asked whether the CJ’s various applications for injunctions stopping his arrest constituted a new judicial principle whereby the prior approval of the Court was being sought before an arrest could be made.

The expert said while the CJ’s application was “novel”, it constituted an “extension of the principle of judicial review”.

“Just as it was in the first case where, although the Constitution entitled the Prime Minister to take, act (and advise the President to establish a Tribunal to investigate the CJ) on the basis that his power under the Constitution to take such action was not being used for the purpose for which it was intended; so too is the CJ injunction being filed on the basis that the institutions (empowered to arrest him) were tainted and influenced by other considerations,” the expert said. “Now whether or not you can prove those two allegations is another question,” the expert stressed.

Consequently the expert added such an injunction is always temporary. “It is merely saying ‘hold your hand until the substantive matter is determined, because if you proceed and you are wrong, irreparable harm could be done,’ the expert said.

PNM sources also said that the dismissal by Justice Judith Jones of the application by Deputy Director of Prosecutions Carla Brown Antoine to vacate the injunction against her signalled a loss for the State.

“If the institution (the DPP) empowered by the Constitution to charge people, cannot charge, then the substantive matter (of what the CJ is to be charged for) cannot be heard,” one source said. But the source said the Government had no option but to stick with the courts, even though “things looked grim.”