The offence of obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty is a general intent offence. The Crown must prove the actus reus which involves: (i) conduct that constitutes an obstruction (ii) to a peace officer (iii) who was engaged in the execution of his duty at the time. The mens rea element requires the Crown to prove the obstruction was done wilfully. In other words, the conduct proscribed is conduct that was intended to obstruct the individual officer in question in the execution of his duty at the time: R v Moore [1979] 1 S.C.R. 195
Understandably, the print media have been consumed in recent days with the ongoing campaigns of the many parties and candidates in the elections scheduled for this Thursday. But I have already mused on this in my two most recent columns and consider it far more prudent this week to focus on another matter of perhaps only slightly less significant concern to the rights of the citizen.
Many would have “steupsed” instinctively when Magistrate, the reverend Graveney Bannister, suggested recently that those who filmed policeman in the execution of their duty should be prosecuted. After all, some might have reasoned, would this not be at least a disproportionate response to a purported exercise of the guaranteed freedom of expression that includes, according to section 20 of the Constitution, “the freedom to communicate ideas and information without interference”?
And while it is recognized that this freedom may be derogated from in the public interests of defence, safety, order, morality or health, it is also stipulated that any such restriction should be reasonably required. This entails that there must be a legitimate aim for the measure, the measure must be suitable to achieve the aim (potentially with a requirement of evidence to show it will have that effect), the measure must be necessary to achieve the aim, that there cannot be any less onerous way of doing it, and the measure must be reasonable, considering the competing interests of different groups at hand. I am not at all certain that a law as suggested by Mr. Bannister will easily pass these tests.
Some counter-reaction to the magisterial suggestion came subsequently with an offer of BDS$1000 and free legal representation from a local attorney to anyone that may prosecuted for such an offence. However, it was the midweek statement from the Commissioner of Police on the issue that is likely to arouse the greatest civic interest on this issue so far.
As the Commissioner rightly noted, there is no crime committed to record an incident involving the police, although to be fair to Bannister, I do not get the impression that he was contending the contrary but rather suggesting that it ought to be an offence. The Commissioner, however, went on to warn, again quite rightly, “But if in so doing, an act resulting in [willful] obstruction of the officer in the execution of his duties occurs, this will result in an offence…”
I do not know if the Commissioner is aware, but the connection between obstructing an officer in the execution of his or her duty and the photographing or video-recording of an incident involving the police is one of the more intriguing global legal issues today, owed substantially to the notoriety of the police treatment of blackish individuals in the US. Moreover, the Commissioner’s words might have, perhaps inadvertently, lent some authority to the earlier suggestion by the learned Magistrate.
Locally, the offence of obstruction is covered by section 62 of the Police Act, Cap 167, which provides for a penalty of $1000 or imprisonment for a period of 12 months on summary conviction, although it also empowers the magistrate, if he or she is of the opinion that the matter is fit for prosecution on indictment, to commit the offender to stand trial in the High Court.
That much is clear, but the jurisprudence, whether from the US or the Europe, does not afford similar certainty. This is, in my view, a consequence of a number of factors surrounding obstruction by this method, including the citizen’s right to freedom of expression; the need for the police to be able to conduct unhindered investigations of crime and arrests of offenders; and the doubtful legitimacy of an expectation of privacy in public spaces. As for the first, while there are some decisions that have stressed the overarching importance of the freedom of expression to the democratic ideal, there are others that have subordinated it to the prevention of crime.
Thus, one judge in Austin, Texas, was of the view that the individual’s right to record incidents that occurred in public was well established- “If a person has the right to assemble in a public place, receive information on a matter of public concern, and make a record of that information for the purpose of disseminating that information, the ability to make photographic or video recording of that information is simply not a new right or a revolutionary expansion of a historical right. Instead, the photographic or video recording of public information is only a more modern and efficient method of exercising a clearly established right.”
And the majority of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was of like mind in Fields v City of Philadelphia-
“We ask much of our police. They can be our shelter from the storm. Yet officers are public officials carrying out public functions, and the First Amendment requires them to bear bystanders recording their actions. This is vital to promote the access that fosters free discussion of governmental actions, especially when that discussion benefits not only citizens but the officers themselves.”
Hugh Tomlinson QC, writing in the Guardian, in an article entitled “Do we have a fundamental right to film the police in public?” refers to the Metropolitan Police’s statement that “Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel” and recites the words of the US First Circuit Court of Appeals to the following effect- “A citizen’s right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public space is a basic vital and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment.”
The position in Europe is apparently less accommodating to the citizen. In Pentikäinen v Finland (2015), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) merely stated in general terms that the presence of “watchdogs” during the policing of a demonstration is a guarantee that the authorities can be held to account. This has seemingly allowed the jurisdictions to vary in their national approaches. In Spain, the Citizen Security Law 2015 threatens a hefty fine for the unauthorized publication and dissemination of images of the police and in Belgium one video-blogger was fined £300 for filming and uploading two police officers’ response to an incident at a café, which in the court’s view, violated their privacy. Likewise, the lower House of the Dutch parliament recently adopted a motion calling for a change in the law that would result in the prohibition of the publication of recognizable images of police officers.
Whatever will be the response of the local courts to a charge of obstruction of the police by recording the incident of an arrest or other action, given the perceived credibility gap between the word of the officer and that of the citizen, it would be wise for citizens to err on the side of caution. Obstruction of an officer in the execution of his duty is a mixed question of law and fact and while there may be no obstruction if the officer is not in lawful execution of his duty, his sworn assertion that he was in fact being obstructed in his duty is likely to be treated as cogent evidence that he was.
All of what you say would make sense if you have a functioning, less corrupt and less political, more fair and balanced justice system, but you don’t, which voids any good intent you project.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/159136/pm-barbados-leave-ccj
Jeff……so what do you and Barbados Constitution think about the elimination of any court of last resort, be it CCJ or Privy Council.?
….what would be the impact on the already existing lack of enforcement of human rights treaties, charters etc?
and the already existing disrespectful ignoring of the 30 Articles of Universal Human Rights as declared by the UN since 1948?? …by the 2 successive governments.
Bear in mind, even if this is political claptrap…to fool the dumbest people in the society into reelecting an even dumber ass in Fruendel..that nonsense should not been spoken in public or used as a weapon to sway the illiterate….by a lawyer no less,
Jeff
I would also like your views on the law that says, you commit an offence if you insult a policeman. I have witnessed a young man calling a policeman an idiot and being arrested for that offence.
In my view that is a waste of the courts’ time. If a policeman is so thin-skinned to be insulted by that remark, he is in the wrong profession.
@Jeff C
owed substantially to the notoriety of the police treatment of blackish individuals in the US.
+++++++++++
What kind of political correctness is this? Call it by its name , “Minorities” would have worked and “Blackish” works for a sitcom but not an opinion piece.
Should Freundel “Fumble Sluggart” Stuart have his way, these legal issues will be determined in the future by …Hal Gollop assisted by Verla DePezia!
In the 1960s and 70s, when black people witnessed another black person being arrested, or even spoken to in a hostile way by a police officer, they will stop and observe.
Quite often one of the officer’s colleagues will walk up to hem and order hem to move on. If they refused, or hesitated, they would be arrested for obstruction.
So obstruction depends on who is doing the defining. Quite often, the courts accepted the evidence of the police officer.
The mindset at play is clearly a vestige from a not too distant past.
Not every judge’s decision can be sent to ADR…particularly to such incompetent clearly useless lawyers such as Gollop, Depeiza and any government connected lawyers….for any justice to be served..
..and that is without even mentioning the well known partisan political yardfowls.and corruption factors.
@Jeff
Are you so bold as you opine on the story being carried in the local traditional media the PM has promised to exit the CCJ arrangement? This is an opposite position to Mia and the BLP. Could this be an eleventh hour platform debate designed to influence voters?
David
Exiting the CCJ is the Prime Minister’s petulant response to getting the Government’s ass kicked every time they appear before the CCJ.
Maybe, he is expecting another drubbing in the cement case.
Sent from my iPad
Caswell surely you jest? The judges are directed in deliberations and verdicts by what the law dictates?
@Jeff, what makes an officer of the court or a peace officer right and an average citizen wrong? The staure of the former or the grounding of the law upon which they supposedly firmly stand….or what makes the law officers liars: irrefutable video footage?
You noted that : “As the Commissioner rightly noted, there is no crime committed to record an incident involving the police, although to be fair to Bannister, I do not get the impression that he was contending the contrary but rather suggesting that it ought to be an offence.”
You are being kind and diplomatic to a colleague. On the face of the legal precedent in the US and Britain which you cited the magistrate simply was acting like a person ignorant of the law and being that he is a lawyer then his remarks were oppresively stupid.
Recording a police officer cannot be construed to mean or infer that the videographer is in any way impeding or obstructing the officer as he or she can be yards away well away from the police officers.
That he would attempt to link the recoding of the officer with obstructing suggests that he wants to deny publication of any police imaging as the European cases do: he wants to affirm the peace officer’s right to his/her privacy.
Unfortunately, that is NOT the thrust of our laws (as I understand them) so the magistrate is amazingly enacting laws from his bench because “there is no crime committed to record an incident involving the police” when the recorder is not impeding the officer in anyway, according to our statutes.
That type of verbiage from a ‘learned’ magistrate coupled with the thousands of videos showing police brutality, use of excessive/unnecessary force, outright citizen assasinations and the like has long reduced the credibility of the word of police officers.
Thus stop the recordings is the cry of this magistrate or any similarly minded law officers who want to control police arrests scenes and reassert the police’s word as gospel.
Obstructing a police office is wrong ; even simply mildly seeking an accomodation during an arrest can be seen as ‘resisting an arrest’ and thus have additional sanction but pulling out your phone to record the actions of an officer CANNOT be automatically associated with any of that.
IF YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER WAS BEING WRONGFULLY ARRESTED or BEATEN BY A FEW ARMED POLICEMEN
WOULD YOU WANT A MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC TO RECORD IT ?
YES I WOULD.
@ The Luminary Jeff Cumberbatch
My grandson sent me “the video” which I think is at the centre of this furore
It shows a policeman seeking to arrest a conductor in the Cheapside Van Stand and a few members of the public intervening, enthusiastically BUT ILLEGALLY
But I would divert if only momentarily s is de ole man’s want, and introduce a tangent which finds partial genesis in your comment
“…As the Commissioner rightly noted, there is no crime committed to record an incident involving the police…” that de ole man then (mischievously?) juxtaposes against the Commissioner s statement “But if in so doing, an act resulting in [willful] obstruction of the officer in the execution of his duties occurs, this will result in an offence…”
There is a blog here on BU titled https://barbadosunderground.net/2016/07/13/the-brutality-of-the-royal-barbados-police-force-with-video/
De ole man is for want of a better term “incredibly slow ”
But I was wondering if when the Commissioner spoke about a police officer “EXECUTING his duties” IF he or Waveney Bannister meant it literally?
De ole man also was seeking some clarification on whether such video as is shown in that blog qualifies under your statement of erring on the side of caution given that it was a video “of an officer in the execution of his duty..”
The fact is that any tool can be used to effect any outcome be it positive or negative.
Be it an arsonist or a policeman, the fact is that depending on the intent if the party being recorded they will have reason not to have a video recorded or a body camera working while they summarily decide to execute a suspect
The advent of mobile cameras and video recordings has brought with it diverse advantages and evils.
De grandson could take a video of you at UWI during a lecture and lip sync it to suggest that you were asking an inappropriate question of 5 female students at the front of your class.
Regrettably that is the downside but equally so we have not a few “bad boys and girls ” who feel dem above the law and for whom there is no other recourse than a dashcam or a smart phone to keep these supposed uphllders of the law honest
Jeff……so what do you and Barbados Constitution think about the elimination of any court of last resort, be it CCJ or Privy Council.?
I regard this as nothing more than the anguished cry of a disgruntled losing litigant…blame the court and not your not having the law on your side. The rationale for first joining the court in the first place has not changed…
I would also like your views on the law that says, you commit an offence if you insult a policeman. I have witnessed a young man calling a policeman an idiot and being arrested for that offense.
Caswell, this charge is hopelessly outdated. The sensitivities of a police officer as to his looks or intellect should not trump the freedom of expression of an individual citizen
@ Hants
Especially when dealing with the notorious corrupt Barbados Police Force who have more criminals on the inside than outside wider public.
What kind of political correctness is this? Call it by its name , “Minorities” would have worked and “Blackish” works for a sitcom but not an opinion piece.
@ Sarge, I think “minorities” is far too broad,since I have not seen that many Asians, for example, being accosted…and “blackish” expresses precisely those who are profiled, one does not have to be black in the popular sense of that word…indeed someone looking like Obama would likely be subject to police profiling…
Are you so bold as you opine on the story being carried in the local traditional media the PM has promised to exit the CCJ arrangement? This is an opposite position to Mia and the BLP. Could this be an eleventh hour platform debate designed to influence voters?
@ David, I scarcely think the current electorate gives a fig about which is our final court, whether the CCJ, the JCPC or the local Court of Appeal…
@Jeff
Then it begs the question why bray the view at this time 3 days before general election becomes due?
Maybe, he is expecting another drubbing in the cement case
Of course, it is not possible to withdraw from the original jurisdiction without a pullout from the entire Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas….
@ The Honourable Blogmaster your assistance please
@Jeff
Then it begs the question why bray the view at this time 3 days before general election becomes due?
@ David, maybe a voice in his head…a whisper from his advisers…an assumption that we as a people will be jingoistic in respect of the decisions of state officers in Barbados? All of these? Or none of them?
A view Jeff is that the prime minister is attempting to rally the DLP base.
@Jeff
This case may strike back to the to the Systems Sales Ltd case the CCJ pissed on the local judiciary. More interestedly on Hal Gollop and Vernon Smith- close friends of Stuart- represented at the case at the CCJ.
https://barbadosunderground.net/2015/02/21/barbados-and-ccj-in-a-tiiff/
@Jeff, what makes an officer of the court or a peace officer right and an average citizen wrong? The staure of the former or the grounding of the law upon which they supposedly firmly stand….or what makes the law officers liars: irrefutable video footage?
@ DPD, It is not a matter of who may be right and who wrong…my point simply was that the assertion of a police officer that he was being obstructed in the execution of his duty if far more likely to resonate with the Barbadian magistrate than the testimony of the accused that he was simply exercising his freedom of expression. Especially if he has been asked to remove himself from the scene and has refused to do so.
You noted that : “As the Commissioner rightly noted, there is no crime committed to record an incident involving the police, although to be fair to Bannister, I do not get the impression that he was contending the contrary but rather suggesting that it ought to be an offense.”
I was of the impression that Bannister was calling for a new offense of video recording the police rather than subsuming it under the existing offense of obstruction…
@Jeff, at days closure it’s really all semantics but I fully agree with Sargeant re the PC blackish. For want of a better phrase, I would say let’s call a spade a spade!
People like President Obama or the exceedingly lovely Alicia Keys for example are BLACK in the eyes of a cop . Not blackish. And they are profiled as Black because in the hearts and minds of many of those police officers the old ‘dictum’ holds true….
…”for purposes of representation in Congress, enslaved blacks in a state would be counted as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state.”
No need now to be PC. The white population of that day and those after – particularly law officers- have understood that to mean…any black gene evidence is equal to being 100% Black so I can treat you as less than a human!
It is what it is…cute words, a blackish president and blackish duchess of Sussex notwithstanding.
@ Jeff Cumberbatch May 20, 2018 10:46 AM
Why not see it as the rant of a raving madman who is intoxicated with the poison of underserved political power.
How can a jackass for a lawyer make an embarrassingly stupid statement of such mammoth contradiction?
You just cannot talk about having no objection to the decisions of the CCJ while- from the other corner of your lying mouth- talk about withdrawing from the same institution of last resort for justice?
So no Privy Council for Barbados like the other players who have not yet signed on to the CCJ? So what then?
Must Bajans who seek justice be subject to the partisan political whims based on the dictates of Dictator Lord Fumble King Stuart along with his trusted advisor who has lost every case (LEC) before the same CCJ because of his sheer incompetence in such ‘weighty’ legal matters?
BTW, was Hal G. ever one of your ‘brighter’ students or did he manage to barely slip through the cracks made for sheer incompetents on Cave Hill?
I’m very impressed at the good gesture by this attorney who has reached out to the citizenry in the event they’re ever prosecuted for exercising their rights as endowed by the constitution of Barbados. What is sorely lacking in Barbados and throughout the region is that individuals having attained a higher level of academic enlightenment are not becoming guardians or their brothers keepers. What is most interesting and it is quite evident, to borrow a quote; we’re not hanging together but obviously separately.
@ de pedantic Dribbler
In the USA and CANADA Alicia Keys is BLACK.
I can personally testify to that reality as I am a Bajan brown skin/ red fella.
@Jeff, and now at 11:14 You are being TOO kind to your colleague. 😁
To accept fully that ” Bannister was calling for a new offense of video recording the police…” is to go off at a full canter towards the type of legislation you cited in Spain, Belgium or Holland.
Has this magistrate sat in courts in those jurisdictions and now wants to impose those type rulings here from his bench?
There was NOTHING in your piece suggesting we are anywhere close to that type legislation…in fact you strongly suggested just the opposite.
This magistrate by his off-hand remarks suggest a dangerous and lax concept of sound reasoning. In sum, poor judgement.
One day I hope I can visit you at a diplomatic ‘court’ of repute (St. James, Brussels, Washington wherever) where you would be sitting as an outstanding representative of our nation because senor you are truly an excellent diplomat! No jest.
“What is sorely lacking in Barbados and throughout the region is that individuals having attained a higher level of academic enlightenment are not becoming guardians or their brothers keepers.”
Exactly..many more Jeffs, Caswells etc are needed to enlighten and educate the public, most other professionals, politicians, ministers and community leaders much prefer keep all information away from the public leaving them in total, tortuous ignorance…..these are truly vile creatures.
Eric Williams once said 1 from 10 = 0
A strange arithmetic, but pleasing to the eye. Represents a certain logic.
If most of the countries in the region are refusing to join, after nearly 10 years, we seem to recall
Why should Barbados stay?
If Stuart is right, that there are only two countries, as members, why continue with this fiction? This is not what its name says, not Caribbean, not a real court, not dispensing justice.
Where is the nationalistic furor to repatriate the constitution from abroad?
Because a DLP prime minister is saying leave and a BLP prime minister might have set it up.
It’s amazing how petty the polity has grown.
@Pacha
Are our leaders expected to govern based on a nationalistic fervour?
Btw Antigua promised last week to take the matter of joining the CCJ to a referendum. No need to remind you the hesitancy to join the CCJ by Caribbean countries comes against the background the British Privy Council is not as welcoming as in the past as it seeks to pull back from the former colonies.
David
If you have only two countries, as members, out of twenty something, after 10 years, and with Caribbean people voting, or otherwise choosing, not to join. Where, there is no popular basis for the existence of this court.
Are you then saying that Barbados cannot be its own final court?
Seems to us that most of the Caribbean is choosing to be their final appeal court by not joining the CCJ.
That we had to wait for the Court of Appeal in Britain to tell us not to loiter on that prescient says more about us than them.
Whether you realize it or not ‘nationalistic fervor’ is being imposed by all forces.
On what basis can Barbados in practical terms propose it be the final court of appeal if we cannot manage routine backlog and other routine activities of a lower court? Further, what is the objective to being a signatory to Caricom?
We wonder what it cost the government to be members of the CCJ?
How come nobody is interested in the cost of supporting this legal regime?
Especially, when it hears, not many cases every year.
Why must Jamaicans or Trinidadians or the British be expected to render a justice totally devoid of bias? Where has such happened before?
The judges are required to apply commonwealth law as it relates to cases lodged from Barbados not so?
The British can’t manage these routine matters either, yet you have appealed to them for decades.
You seem to hold fanciful notions about British legal culture.
Why not appeal to yourself now?
We have made a case about that the CCJ is unworthy of its name.
And have asked some questions, ignored by you.
You have asked questions that call for speculation in the main. It is documented how the CCJ operations is funded i.e. a bond which generates interest to underwrite operating cost.
You have no functioning, fair and balanced judiciary, judges, magistrates and court officials are selected, not elected, based solely on political partisanship and yardfowlism as tools and weapons to be used later by government, against the same people who pay their salaries.the citizens… .Pacha..
How will there ever be any judiciary free of corruption where average citizens can seek and get justice, it has not happened in over 60 years, has been particularly bad under this outgoing loser government, so what makes you think it will suddenly happen now.
Besides, untangling from the revised treaty of chagaramas will be no cake walk….none of them in the outgoing government have the intelligence to pull that off smoothly and with their dummy lawyers beside them, would probably end up being sued. .
Fruendolittle could not even chair Caricom without being seen as a sluggard and incompetent, causing Jamaica to threaten to pull out of Caricom cause he did absolutely nothing to advance the cause or engender confidence and progress in 8 years, just as he did as PM in Barbados….nothing.
We known not, but if this final court is not making sense, why continue with a pretense, which ever law, Commonwealth or not.
Somebody had to issue a bond, or some entity, and the operations of that entity reflects on the value of such a bond.
This fanciful structuring does not entirely shield it from perceptions of bias.
@Pacha
If there is a biase as you say then the decisions handed down by the CCJ have to stand the scrutiny of peer review not so? Certainly not critique coming from a lame duck politician.
@Pacha
Have a read about the particulars of the CCJ Trust Fund. It was contributed to by Caricom members from the proceeds of a CDB loan.
Go figure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Court_of_Justice
Police in the UK do not have a common law right to stop people filming or taking photographs. There is no right of privacy in the UK. However, under anti-terrorism legislation they can – and frequently do – on security grounds.
Well Well
We still the same people.
Our is not the case you would want to make for us.
We know all kinds of things wrong about local ‘injustice’ system.
However, that is not the issue. We would prefer a well functioning Caribbean court with all countries or as many is practicable. Even Martinique and Guadeloupe, if possible.
The issue is that you have had 10 years and there are only 2 members. This is not a Caribbean Court of Justice.
Why continue with such a charade?
Do you think that there could be anybody serving on such a count unknown to the rest of us, in the Caribbean.
If you have only two countries, as members, out of twenty something, after 10 years, and with Caribbean people voting, or otherwise choosing, not to join. Where, there is no popular basis for the existence of this court.
Are you then saying that Barbados cannot be its own final court?
Seems to us that most of the Caribbean is choosing to be their final appeal court by not joining the CCJ.
That we had to wait for the Court of Appeal in Britain to tell us not to loiter on that prescient says more about us than them.
Whether you realize it or not ‘nationalistic fervor’ is being imposed by all forces.
@Pachamama,
There are in fact four jurisdictions that have the CCJ as their final Court of Appeal and there are NOT “twenty something” possible members
Of course, Barbados may be its own final court, but current performance would not support such an initiative.
Indeed the majority of jurisdictions continue to loiter on the steps of a reluctant Judicial Committee of Her Majesty’s Privy Council after over half a century of flag and anthem independence/ Would we be ready to accept a Parliament of British MPs as constituting our Legislature or Cabinet? Why then are we willing yo accept their judges as our highest court?
The good news is Fruendel took a serious beating from all quarters on his really foolish mouthings;
politicians and ministers are still yet to learn that they should not individually and singularly make decisions of such a magnitude for the citizens….it should be put to the people via referendum.
Antigua and Barbuda are asking the citizens their opinion on joining CCJ.
Freundel is dictating that he is leaving CCJ, it is not his decision to make and he is way out of line.
enough with the little hitler politicians on the island.
Maybe now he will shut up and let the few days pass so he can be kicked to the curb.
Pacha…the only people complaining about the CCJ are politicians from Barbados and their incompetent lawyers who do not follow the law, but want to win cases based solely on political party affiliation, which minority can pay them the most and corruption…as they do on the island…the CCJ don’t play those nasty games, so they will never be liked or appreciated by Fruendel & Co.
David
You’re behaving like a setting fowl.
””If there is a biase as you say then the decisions handed down by the CCJ have to stand the scrutiny of peer review not so?
No, If its a final court, there is no review by anybody else.
When we say bias, we did not mean the political interpretation given it by you.
We meant internal biases, that we all generally have. Some prefer the death penalty others not, eg
””””””’Certainly not critique coming from a lame duck politician.”””””””
So a man who is fighting for a third terms is not to say what he wants to do?
It this not what this silly season is about?
Were it not ‘lame ducks’ who set up this court, in the first place?
@Pacha
You appear to be willing to toss rhyme and reason out the window to be a provocateur.
There are biases because you say so?
The reference was made to peer review because as part of the commonwealth decisions will be studied by others.
Stuart had years to make a move on this matter. He wait 3 Rh days before a general election because he knows it will stokes his base? Classic Machiavellian politics!
Fruendel can do what he wants to do in his own house as it impacts his and his family’s lives, but given his lousy track record on governance in the last 8 years, he has no right making life changing decisions that are already ruining lives, without putting it to the people.
Couple years ago am sure Jeff said that there was already a process in place to put such important decisions to referendum, so if a tiny government like Antigua and Barbuda are aware and cognizant enough to take that modern approach , why can’t the boastful, shakespeare quoting Fruendel.
I swear, the damage that Westminster system has done to the weakest minds in the black race is phenomenal and will be the subject of theses for centuries to come.
Jeff
We accept your guidance on this matter. As usual, your comments are sober.
And we can’t pretend to know too much about these matters beyond a broad framing
Last night, the PM said only Guyana and Barbados were members. He is obviously wrong.
Our twenty something figure was a mere guesstimate of the number of independent Caribbean countries, and others, which may want to join if this court were to be truly Caribbean in nature.
“The judicial system comprises a lower Magistrates court and the Supreme Court, which includes a Court of Appeal and a High Court.”
The Court of Appeal should be the final court for justice in Barbados.
The CCJ should be used where cases involve other Caribbean countries.
If the “The judicial system in Barbados is not functioning properly fix it.
Now you well educated BU maguffees can write multi paragraph essays refuting what I have written or just ignore it.
Must RH now be in every converstion by Barbadians?
Since when is this so?
David
There are biases everywhere. To have a bias is not necessarily a bad thing.
Bajan courts make judgement everyday in nearly 100% of the matters coming before them.
What is so provocative by saying, not withstanding the determination by Jeff, that less than 1% of such cases normally to be adjudicated in a final court could also be heard in Barbadian courts.
This must be one of the most conservative things we’ve ever said.
””””””The reference was made to peer review because as part of the commonwealth decisions will be studied by others.”””””’
You are mixing up ‘peer review’ with the decisions of a final court of appeal. The decisions of a final court of appeal can only be overturned by that court.
”””””””””’Stuart has years to make a move on this matter. He wait 3 Rh days before a general election because he knows it will stokes his base? Classic Machiavellian politics!”””””’
Well, this last statement qualifies as the bias we cited earlier.
What based could be so stoked? Maybe a base of 20 litigants, lawyers. That seems hardly likely.
And if that is the extent of his base he should give the keys to Illaro Court to Mottley. That will be pleasing to you.
Your are misunderstanding reference to ‘peer review’ will not labour the point.
All the blogmaster shared was encapsulated in Jeff’s intervention.
The Prime Minister did not cite the instances of disrespect for Barbados by the CCJ. May anyone hazard a guess?
@ Hants, Pacha, yes of course we can stop litigation at the Court of Appeal, but would not both of you prefer some further oversight, given that our judges are virtually appointed by the Prime Minister of the day?
Jeff
Sound reasoning. But is that not a matter we can fix. Some may argue that those on the CCJ, their appointments, may also be so influenced.
Prof NEC May 20, 2018 3:01 PM
Glad to see someone else finds the unnecessary obscenity repulsive. But it seems this is the new Bajan culture.
Pacha…ya will repeat wrong information if you dare to quote anything Fruendel and his gang says….ya obviously did.
you should ask yourself why a PM and chair for caricom does no know how many islands are using CCJ as their court of last resort…or that other islands are considering joining CCJ……which can be attributed to the slowness in determining anything positive…..well associated with all Caribbean leadership.
Well Well
You are holding the party line.
Two, three, four, five members. it’s a small point. The larger point is that the CCJ is not representative of the Caribbean, after 17 years.
A small point readily conceded.
@Pacha
To repeat the point made, ALL the Caricom countries recognize the CCJ in its original jurisdiction.
I don’t see that, is the CCJ not domiciled in the Caribbean?
not a matter of party line, you want juris that will interpret and apply the law based on what is in front of them and not based on the outcomes of what some basic prime ministers, government ministers and corrupt lawyers want.
Maybe it’s best you quote me a case where the CCJ was biased in order to convince me…particularly as it relates to what Fruendel is saying…and especially as it relates to any other case they determined in the Caribbean.
@ Jeff,
I will accept your opinion.
IMHO this is the kind of case best suited for the CCJ as it involves foreign litigants against Barbados.
“Arawak Cement Company Limited (ACCL) and its parent company Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) have filed an application for Special Leave at the Caribbean Court of Justice in order to pursue an Originating Application against the State of Barbados.”
Besides…CCJ can only interpret laws expressly created for Caribbean islands, if you know differently, please share.
Glad to see someone else finds the unnecessary obscenity repulsive.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Someone else?
Wuh If you find it ‘repulsive’ …what the RH you ALWAYS doing on BU….. ?
ya Kant!!!
…and if the RH Prof don’t like um..
He too …can carry his kant….
There are THOUSANDS of options….
Seupsssss….
De ole man also was seeking some clarification on whether such video as is shown in that blog qualifies under your statement of erring on the side of caution given that it was a video “of an officer in the execution of his duty..”
@ Piece, The video, as I recall it, does not portray the policeman in the LAWFUL execution of his duty.No apparent attempt is being made to arrest the suspect,
David
We’ll check that. But to recognize a court in its ‘original jurisdiction’ does not have the same meaning as acceptance as one’s final appellant court.
Allow Jeff to be the final judge on this one!
“Arawak Cement Company Limited (ACCL) and its parent company Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) have filed an application for Special Leave at the Caribbean Court of Justice in order to pursue an Originating Application against the State of Barbados.”
Hants, not only is it suited fort the CCJ, but according to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the CCJ is the only tribunal seized with the authority to determine the matter in its original jurisdiction.
Pacha, you are correct!
Just noticed in the Nation paper, DLP Stuart says he’ll withdraw from the CCJ if re-elected, moving closer to a DICTATORSHIP.
Voter beware.
If the majority population was undecided before about not returning this exgovernment to parliament, that all went out the window with Fruendel’s baseless accusations regarding the CCJ, despite knowing and not caring how ineffective the island’s judiciary has become, because of incompetence and corruption…no one likes dictators and have no reason to tolerate them in this day and age of enlightenment and all the tools available to expose it to the world and have it removed…
He effectively sabotaged his own campaign and shot himself in the foot…there is nothing he can do to walk that biggest of errors back, not in 4 days.
I repeat ad nauseam Stuart is not known to be a lawyer to represent significant parties in Barbados nor in the Region.I am speaking of lawyers like the late Sir Bree,Sir Louis,Sir Richard,Sir Henry,Elliot,Mia,RalphThorne,Andrew Pilgrim.So when Stuart got in the House and moved a resolution to expunge the criminal record of 1937 rioters and did not know that Owen Arthur had already done that in 1998 it was no surprise to many.Now to want to remove Barbados from the CCJ for reasons unknown other than saying that they are politicians in robes but people are reading Hardstone might get the dirty end of the stick which might bankrupt them when the compensation and costs of 3 years is added up,one can see Staurt is missing the true role of the CCJ.He should have done his homework or sought advice from his courtiers.
At page 32A in the Sunday Sun today,read the comments of John Beale,a former ambassador to the UN and the OAS,a diplomat appointed by the Dems.Beale went on to list the woes he experienced at the hands of the Stuart administration.Poor management,lack of planning and foresight,indecisiveness,failure to make timely decisions on key issues,the massive decline in the offshore financial services sector,poor conditions of the roads,inefficient transport service,the South Coast Sewage issue,the numerous downgrades,the lack of foreign exchange,the high cost of living,the many poor performing Statutory Corporations,failure to follow up on issues that need urgent and prompt attention,an economy that is not growing when other countries in the Region are showing improvement are among the significant failures noted by this former DLP appointed diplomat.
Why would any rational thinking voter,support the DLP for a third term.Its suicidal.
I have had enough experience in managing people to know that if a policeman in uniform say to you to move on,don’t wait for him to say it a second time.Failure to obey an officer whether you think his order is stupid or he is being stupid is not a battle you will win because the next step is arrest and your ass in a prison cell for at least 24 hours.Never try to match wits with a police officer outside a court hearing.Never call a police officer stupid even if you think he or his action is.Police,Customs and Immigration are 3 institutions in which a lot of power is given and wielded.Obey them or suffer the consequences even if temporary.
Mr Blogmaster thanks for the link…a readup on the CCJ is useful in context of this discussion.
Generally however I find it amusing that the PM laments about politicians in judges robes as I am unaware of many (any really) jurisdictions where a judges political inflections are not instrumental in his/her assignments to the appellate bench.
I would be ticked off too if judges who were my peers had the temerity to tell me repeatedly that my legal system is piss poor on judicial decisions and general sloth of process.
But in his position I would have tried desperately to improve the process not attempt to silence the messenger.
One day 2 accused appeared before magistrate Graveney Bannister in respect of an infringement of the law while in the Nursery Drive Van Stand.I think they were ‘sent up’ on remand for 28 days.The magistrate had a few choice comments to make in respect of those capturing the events ‘live’ on social media.
A few days later at a political event where the Miinister of Transport is opening the Van Stand Terminus building in time for a photo op to bolster his party’s chances at getting support in the upcoming election( he was heard praising the ZR drivers and conductors as the best behaved and cleanest in the world,and the hustler vendors as the most organized and law abiding citizens in Barbados)at this event a clerk in holy orders bedecked in a black cassock and dog collar was seen walking and sprinkling holy water.That same person was the magistrate Graveney Bannister,seen enthusiastically carrying out his priestly duties and at the same time pressing as much flesh as the Minister himself.No wonder Freundel Stuart can speak so glibly about politicians in robes.
I believe that the case at the CCJ that stung the Gov’t the most was the Myrie case, it pitted the word of a Minister against a person that officers of the Gov’t alleged was of loose moral character and tested the Gov’ts ability to keep persons they considered undesirable out of the country. It also stirred up public sentiment in Jamaica against the Barbados Gov’t and Bajans in particular. Of particular note the defense was in the hands of two QC’s, Gollop and Forde.
Freundel should desist from making important policy decisions in a cavalier fashion, I also recalled the Republic announcement at a branch meeting. If the Gov’t felt this strongly about the CCJ it should have been in its Manifesto
You are over-analysing the situation Sergeant.
The man simply has no clue…. A simple idiot.l
When someone can defer to Stinkliar for eight years and for 22 downgrades …it is not a case of making hasty decisions.
You have a brass bowl idiot.
The ‘republic talk’, like the ‘CCJ withdrawal’ is simple ‘bravado’… otherwise known as shiite talk.
Couldn’t agree with PM Stuart more on the exit from CCJ. The judgement in the Myrie case left many puzzled. The urgent sitting of CCJ on a Sunday to “order” Barbados to allow foreigners to vote in national elections puzzled even more. Most shocking was the reduction of sentence on a Guyanese for a heinous crime which led to the most cruel death of a Russian girl. Additionally the CCJ lacks work only two cases were heard all year. The taxpayers of Barbados deserve better for their money.
aka waiting
Neither Fruendel nor his nuisance fellow politicians nor fraternity parasites, nor those political appointees they select to run the judiciary into the ground have any plans or intention to fix the present useless state of their court system, they all much prefer to attempt to corrupt the integrity of the CCJ instead …for their own criminal purposes, which must never be allowed to happen.
It is a disgrace that they ignore the decisions of their own appellate court and chief justice when he tries to apply the law fairly….it highlights the fact that he tries to make changes but the government itself who appointed him to the post make sure his attempts are resisted ….resistance he has had to work against since being returned to the island, a monumental task given the mentalities of ministers and lawyers steeped in everything that is wrong, unfair and unjust..
Outside of countries well known for being corrupt…I have never, ever heard of leaders who believe that being corrupt is normal….and should spread like a cancer to suit their narrow, backward agendas, circumventing the course of justice and even constitutional laws to do so, even if it means destroying lives.
No one would talk about the island in tones that suggest things are not right, if they were.
The jurists on the CCJ bench understand the destructive forces of corruption and what can result from not allowing justice to take its course swiftly and decisively. … the leaders in Barbados much prefer pretend that such practices of ignoring laws and procedures are quite normal and the only way they know how to do business….and still believe to themselves that people outside of the island are not aware of the rot they all cultivated and allowed to grow and destroy everything in its path for decades.
If any government was genuine about fixing the destruction in the supreme court and judiciary, the first effort they would make is stop the political appointments of judges and magistrates by PMs government ministers.
Political appointments = government interference and influence.
Judges and magistrates should be ELECTED by the PEOPLE who pay their salaries and not by governments to be used as tools and weapons against the citizens.
@ Dunks Gripe May 20, 2018 10:50 PM
“Couldn’t agree with PM Stuart more on the exit from CCJ. The judgement in the Myrie case left many puzzled. The urgent sitting of CCJ on a Sunday to “order” Barbados to allow foreigners to vote in national elections puzzled even more. Most shocking was the reduction of sentence on a Guyanese for a heinous crime which led to the most cruel death of a Russian girl. Additionally the CCJ lacks work only two cases were heard all year. The taxpayers of Barbados deserve better for their money.”
But wait, “waiting”, if your PM and his party of deceivers and liars feel so strong about the CCJ why was the proposal to leave the CCJ not put in your party’s ‘last minute’ edited manifesto?
If you feel so strongly about not returning to the Privy council as the court of final appeal for Bajans why did Lord King Fumble QC not put in his party’s manifesto the intention of his party to move completely away from the British monarchy to a full republic status with the local Court Appeal the final arbiter of ‘blind’ Justice in Barbados already burdened with justice a system that even the Sanhedrin in the time of Jesus would have founds woefully reprehensible.
BLP yard fowl and pimp David another reason why we should exit CCJ is after all this time not one Barbadian judge has been appointed to the panel. The vile fifth column lives on BU working overtime to destroy this country.
Miller….they are all frauds and corrupt…because the CCJ would stand for none of it, fraudulent Fruendolittle and his gang will seek to demonize the CCJ in the minds of the clueless in the society, but it backfired…lol
The institution of the judiciary is too damaged and decayed, too many lawyers are too dishonest and destructive for too long, for the population not to notice.
This one blew up on them even bigger than the nigerian billionaire cockup….hope to see them in front of judges soon, with all those lawsuits being filed.
Wont it be a thing to see them in front of the CCJ..getting a lesson on how fair justice is being applied from that bench.
Dunks Gripe May 21, 2018 8:03 AM
BLP yard fowl and pimp David another reason why we should exit CCJ is after all this time not one Barbadian judge has been appointed to the panel…(Quote)
Is it because they are not considered competent enough?
Had it not been for the corruption in the judiciary…a bajan judge would have long be enappointed to the CCJ…..blame yourselves, yall too corrupt.
The bar association and disciplianary committee have been national disgraces for decades, no one wants toxic corruption and dishonesty around them, ya want to be on the CCJ bench…clean up ya nastiness first.
Ya lawyers Haynes, Gollop and Smith went and embarrassed the island in front of the CCJ numerous times, forgetting they were not in the local courts destroying the process as they are accustomed.
Serves yall right.
The worse of it is, with all the big boasts of being the best educated and holding the most paper degrees they all so love to spout, not one of them want to face reality and admit what they have done and are still doing, none want to take responsibility, as is the norm on the island.
Well this one is theirs and they have no choice but to own it, the judiciary did not destroy itself nor did it give itself such a notoriously shameful reputation.
@ Dunks Gripe May 21, 2018 8:03 AM
“BLP yard fowl and pimp David another reason why we should exit CCJ is after all this time not one Barbadian judge has been appointed to the panel. The vile fifth column lives on BU working overtime to destroy this country.”
No, “No waiting”, the country is being destroyed not by BU but by the continuing presence of sewage on the South coast; the breadbasket for Bajan foreign exchange and significant commercial activity.
Why don’t you do like Sealy & Boyce and prove BU wrong but swimming in the shit on the South coast the same way you exercise in the cesspool on George Street?
The sensible attorneys on the island know what a backward, destructive idea Fruendel spewed to the public, coming from a PM and a lawyer, it only compounds the reason why he is not suitable to be anyone’s leader.
Fruendel is too idle…the devil finds destructive work for idle hands and minds.
https://barbadostoday.bb/2018/05/21/leaving-the-ccj-would-be-a-backward-step-local-attorneys-say/
“Two established members of the local legal fraternity have slammed Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s plan to break from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as Barbados’ final appellate court.
According to Andrew Pilgrim, QC, this move is “poorly thought out and a retrograde step,” which would mean that justice for the average Barbadians would rest solely in the hands of Judges appointed by the Prime Minister. He also noted that this could have serious implications for transparency of recourse for the average citizen against the Government.
“When one looks at the high quality decisions and the access to justice that has resulted from the CCJ, I would regard the comments as unfortunate and a retrograde step. I can’t imagine that the Prime Minister soberly thought that this was something that would be appropriate to do. I think this is something that just happens during political meetings so that they can get people to clap and jump up,” Pilgrim said.
“It would mean that people of Barbados would have no real appellate court and this is vital especially in a country where judges are appointed by the Prime Minister. However, as I said before, I believe it is just talk because there is no way this could have been soberly thought out.”
If perchance Stuart has his way with the CCJ,we can say goodbye to foreign investment.No investor will risk litigation in a court of political appointees bereft of balanced thinking.They will all pull up stakes and go where they can be guaranteed due process and a fair hearing.Ask any lawyer what Elyut did to the reputation of the high court.A man who couldn’t leave his prosecuting skills at the DPP office.
@Gabriel
A point to ponder. Some like Bushie will respond we have to back our skills to negotiate and carve a path to the selected destination. The late Amused in our many conversations would argue your point. A solid judiciary is required to support a vibrant international sector. We are therefore debating the need for an efficient court side to dispense justice side by side with a perception of the foreign investor as to whether a local jurisdiction would have the wherewithal to deliver quality decisions to stand an international test.
@ Well, Well May 21, 2018 8:58 AM
So what do you expect from an ugly donkey for a primate inter Parris who has condemned MAM for practising law without an LEC?
How could this ugly fool demonstrate so passionately his objection to a regional judicial organization like the CCJ but could still berate a person for not having the same regional certification which reinforces the relevance and credence for the same CCJ?
Doesn’t the doublespeak bleeding jackass understand that the title Queen’s Counsel (QC) which is worn like a badge of subservience to the British monarch is mainly worn, like silk, by those UK trained lawyers who are not LEC graduates?
Why insist on having an LEC when a simple award of a QC would suffice?
Shouldn’t the title LEC, SC (Senior Counsel) be more suitable a title for the region with no need to go to the British Privy Council?
Fumbling Stuart should be attacking his fellow primates for their failure to get their own people to support applications to join the CCJ; not the institutions that protect the ordinary citizens from the ‘dictatorial’ excesses demonstrated by those in power.
That is the totally destroyed, colonized mind of the house negro, the inability to think rationally..
.the parliament was up until recently..infested with them.
Hopefully after the election, the voters would have managed to keep most if not all of them out of parliament, they are a disgrace and disrespect to the citizens and island..
Miller
Once again there is the proof that that simple word CONFIDENCE is absent from Stuart’s thinking.With 23 downgrades of the Barbados economy during his party’s stewardship,he is offering to have a court system where an outcome is possibly affected not by the evidence but by the colour of the claimant’s shirt.
David
I strongly believe that this is the reason many of our Regional States including Trinidad and Jamaica are hesitant to take the important step to relinquish the British Privy Council as their final court.Existing investors and the threat to influence future prospects have clearly made their whispers directed to the top.
The privy council will soon have no choice but to kick all those Caribbean islands still clinging on them to the curb anyway, the CCJ is quite capable of handling cases within the Caricom Community…
@Jeff
Is it an accurate perspective to take that justices at the CCJ must be competitive to interpret laws outside of the Commonwealth given the make up of Caricom? If yes this puts Bajan applicants with a narrow bio at a disadvantage?
David Mr Blogmaster you and Gabriel are operating a political red herring with this grand claim sans any solid basis to question “…whether a local jurisdiction would have the wherewithal to deliver quality decisions to stand an international test.”
As a layman this is ridiculous to me re business affairs. Whenever international business contracts are being done the parties generally have the right to determine where and how any disputes will be handled.
Can you therefore please explain why such obligations could not stipulate that the Privvy council or any duly constituted international body (like ICC Arbitration) be the court of last resort??
This is red herring argument: sweet to taste when nicely roasted but as one blogger is won’t to say, not really suited for the meal in question.🙃
A properly constituted CCJ can function well and still provide adequate comfort for international businessmen to be relaxed that their disputes and business interests can be adjudicated “to stand an international test” as they so choose.
There are (valid, if one can call them that) reasons the island governments are playing this game but this ploy is certainly not as integral as they would have us believe.
@Dee Word
What are you saying- an IBC incorporated in Barbados for example must agree to have its legal matters arbitrated in another country?
All students of legal theory should be trained in all global dominant legal systems. I am not a lawyer, but out of curiosity still read about legal systems around the world.
Mr Blogmaster, re “The Hague – an IBC incorporated in Barbados for example must agree to have its legal matters arbitrated in another country?”
Your query has me perplexed? Is that not EXACTLY the argument you and Gabriel ARE making re Privy Council? The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is domiciled in another country other than Barbados, is it not!
Pray tell the distinction therefore to have a final court arbitratrate a business dispute in the Hague for said IBC incorporated and operating in BIM.
@Dee Word
It is a simple point being made, if the Privy Council were to be deemed the final court of Barbados our laws would reflect no? Would you consider it a foreign Court in such a scenario?
Oopss…excuse the error in cut and pasting…that first sentence should read of course: Mr Blogmaster, re “What are you saying- an IBC incorporated in Barbados for example must agree to have its legal matters arbitrated in another country?”…..
David, you are a good debater…you extend the moot a few feet everytime the space closes 😁!
My answer to your query is no, of course. As you suggest, it being part of the local jurisprudence then for all intents and purposes it’s part of the ‘local’ judicial system.
But I ask, oh master debater, isn’t the international Court of Justice (or should i defer and say some key innternatioal courts) not considered part of local judicial system for purposes of commercial and other disputes between states?
So why if an IBC contracts in BIM and agrees with the Bajan entities with whom it’s contracted and the Govt that it will use one of those other foreign based bodies to resolve matters is that body not local too?
If I follow your reasoning it is indeed a simple answer to your simple point… QED applies in both instances as part of the law of the land!
@ Dunks Gripe
While we ole man does not agree with 3 of your 4 points posited earlier there is one I do endorse
You said and I quote “The urgent sitting of CCJ on a Sunday to “order” Barbados to allow foreigners to vote in national elections puzzled even more…”
There are two sides to every debate your side my side and the truth.
Obviously de ole man can’t count but…
It becomes obvious to the observing eye that a specific person on the CCJ was leveraged to meet on this matter notwithstanding the outcome
That brings us back to the issue of corruption and insider manipulation which irrespective of the purported expertise of the CCJ is now tainted by these acts
Having said that the fiasco just goes to show how slothful of foot Fumbles and Miami Vice Johnson are with this opportunity to FURTHER PAD THE VOTERS LIST WITH ELIGIBLE CARICOM CITIZENS whom the contesting parties cannot gainsay them being appended to the list
So Ventose and party may have introduced the veritable Trojan horse
Steupseee
@The Honourable Blogmaster Your assistance please
@Gabriel
May 21, 2018 9:20 AM
If perchance Stuart has his way with the CCJ,we can say goodbye to foreign investment.No investor will risk litigation in a court of political appointees bereft of balanced thinking.
Foreign investors long ago were frightened off by crooked lawyers and the court process. The island is missing out on a $200 million hotel investment from a willing but terrified foreign investor. Suffocating red tape manipulated by immoral lawyers are the biggest stumbling block to FDI not Stuart telling the CCJ to screw off for insulting our sovereign nation.
What $200 million foreign investment what.You mean another swipe at the NIS funds.
Piece you said
-So Ventose and party may have introduced the veritable Trojan horse-
This is where the balls Tom Adams willed to this generation became droopy. Venttose or F%#ktose and party would receive swift kicks in the rear from Jon Michael Geoffrey Manningham. They’d be on the first outbound flight. Any CCJ law suit would have to come from offshore. Our peaceful life would resume in short order. Ask ralph.
David Commissiong
@ David BU,
I thought Commissiong was the leader of the PEP. He sound more like a leader of the BLP.
@ David BU,
What influence do you think David Commissiong will have on the policies of the BLP ?
@Jeff
Is it an accurate perspective to take that justices at the CCJ must be competitive to interpret laws outside of the Commonwealth given the make up of Caricom? If yes this puts Bajan applicants with a narrow bio at a disadvantage?
@ David, not really, there is a spot reserved for a judge familiar with Dutch law, currently filled by Justice Wit for Surinam.
Correction, not ‘competitive’ should be competent.
@ David May 21, 2018 11:30 AM
What Jeff can also shed some light on are the possible ramifications which can ensue from Stuart’s intention to remove Barbados from the jurisdiction of the CCJ.
Would Barbados be extricating itself from only the Appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ or would it be a full and clean break from the CCJ to be called the “BAR-EXIT”?
Additionally what implications would there be for the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas if Barbados just ‘pull stumps and leave’ the CCJ should Stuart by some rare alignment of evil with misfortune is returned as the PM of Barbados?
Fruendolittle turned out to be the dumbest, most destructive shakespeare quoting lawyer/politician through a quirk of karma/fate, to fall into the people’s parliament….he highlights all that is wrong in the colonized nonfunctional mind of the black male who has never known himself and remains unconscious, useless to his own people.
Bad enough for the people he became pm to begin with, even worse to end up as pm again in 2013, the island needs a permanent break from him and his gang.
Not one seat.
@ The Luminary Jeff Cumberbatch
De Ole Man hath been chomping at the bait for some months now waiting for the right opportunity to ask this question of you
I, whom am known as an accomplished internet teif, do here and now verily rely on another such excerpt as the central topic for said question
“Election silence, pre-election silence, electoral silence, or campaign silence is a ban on political campaigning prior to a …general election. … Barbados…”
De ole man would have inserted one of my Stoopid Cartoons here to emphasize that point but because of my respect for you (it has in the RH bad word albeit an acronym) I did not add it
This article tangentially speaks to obstructing the police so de ole man was in a frame of mind as it related to
(1) virtual advertising which the internet affords for such campaign ads as the Stoopid Cartoons
And
(2) SMS texts that can originate anywhere in the world AND AGAINST WHICH THERE IS NO MECHANISM TO DEFEAT
BARRING THE INTERNET BLOCKAGE THAT THE DLP WILL BE EMPLOYING TOMORROW
But back to my two part question
Is there any law which debars internet campaigning which our archaic laws can legally enforce heheheheh and given the virtual nature and “originations” of this intangible phenomenon do you think that any current or future administration can legislate electioneering silence for the internet?
I do beg thine indulgence for one more query notwithstanding only asking for two
Who can be prosecuted for this potential virtual crime if say Party A, knowing that virtual dissemination of electioneering materials is a crime after 12 pm, continued to disseminate material that is Party B’s with the intention to incriminate party B?
@ The Honourable Blogmaster your assistance please with an item