Peter David and team

Elected member for the Town of St. George, Peter David is to remain as a Parliamentarian in the House of Representatives.
David got the nod from high court judge, Justice Kenneth Benjamin who ruled against a move made by Attorney-General, Elvin Nimrod and Legal Advisor to Cabinet, Hugh Wildman to nullify David's election in the 2003 general election.

The government action was aimed at providing its defeated candidate in the poll, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister, Senator Brenda Hood to get another shot at the seat that she had won in 1999.

Speaking on behalf of David and the rest of the successful legal team, former Attorney-General, Dr Francis Alexis told reporters shortly after the judgement was handed down that the State failed to convince the judge with its arguments.

Dr. Alexis said that what the Attorney General sought to do was put forward an application to have the Court declare as null and void the election of David to the House of Representative on the ground that the M.P was disqualified citizenship-wise.

He spoke of the AG using a certain procedure to get the matter before the high court for hearing. According to Dr. Alexis, the defense team of lawyers, including Dr. Barnette, QC, from Jamaica who led the arguments before Justice Benjamin submitted in their preliminary arguments that the court had absolutely no jurisdiction to entertain the Attorney General's application.

This, he said was put forward in light of their interpretation of section 37 of the Constitution of Grenada and Section 97 of the Representation of the People's Act 1993 of Grenada. "Anytime you seek to question the election of a member of the House of Representatives no matter what shape or form you put it in, if ....you're seeking to question the election then ...the combined effect of section 37 of the Constitution and Section 97 of the Representation of the People's Act (is that) you must bring an election petition and you're not allowed to bring any other procedure. They attempted to bring another procedure", he said.

Dr. Alexis indicated that the defense was able to produce cases from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, St Vincent and Australia to back their arguments. He added that these cases that were brought to the attention of the court uniformly made the point that it is an abuse of the process of the court to try to question the election of a member of the House of Representative by a procedure other than an election petition which had to be presented within approximately 21 day following a general election.

 

He said that the Attorney-General and his representative Hugh Wildman was not able to present a single case from anywhere on the face of Earth or even Mars to justify what they were attempted to do in the David matter.

Dr. Alexis pointed out that the court had absolutely no alternative but to rule in favour of David and to conclude that the State was simply trying to abuse the process of the Court.

"...It is gratifying that the Court not only upheld our submission but awarded Mr David $10,000 costs," he said. As the judge read from his notes, it was quite noticeable that the controversial Wildman was not present in court. Attempts by this newspaper to reach him for comment proved futile, Wildman reportedly told another media house that he was medically unfit to appear in court since he had the flu and had prior engagements.

The Jamaican attorney also said that he was not surprised with the judgement since it followed a similar pattern in the high court but that he was confident of overturning the ruling before the Court of Appeal. In comments made to reporters after the ruling, David expressed total satisfaction with the outcome, saying that he always believed it would have ended in that manner.

A few of David's supporters who patiently waited to hear the outcome both outside and inside the court expressed their happiness with the judgement. "Peter is rightly seated in the House of Representatives, he is rightly so elected (as) Representative for the Town of St George", was the comment of one of the MP's supporters.

A number of placards bearing anti-NNP slogans were also displayed outside the court. "Victory is ours", was the shout coming from the lips of popular NDC female activist Camiel Scott.

Scott expressed disappointed that Wildman was absent from the court when the judgement was being handed down. "Where is Mr Wildman, to sit in the court to hear he case this morning ", she shouted. "He should be here to get he results," said an elated Camiel.