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| Phillip’s Legal Team Serves Pre-emptive Blow |
| By Sheena Brooks |
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Glenn and Mellicia Phillip |
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Lawyers representing Hon. Glenn Phillip and other defendants in an election petition brought on by People's Action Movement (PAM) leader Lindsay Grant want the case thrown out before it is heard by the Court.
Grant, who lost to Phillip by some 29 votes in the January 25th General Elections is charging Phillip, Supervisor of Elections Leroy Benjamin Sr., and three members of the Electoral Commission with voter fraud and other illegalities.
On Wednesday (July 21), Phillip’s lawyer Dr. Henry Browne, Benjamin’s attorney Anthony Astaphan, S.C., and the Electoral Commission’s legal representative Andranauth Gossai made an application for Grant’s petition to be struck out. According to Browne, Grant’s case was fraught with ambiguity, and was therefore of no merit.
“There is really no basis for that scurrilous charge, especially as it is laced with that kind of calumny; it should not see itself in the court of law. We have been confident for however long that the various charges in the petition alleging corruption, bribery, and cheating could not be made out at all because there are several accusations of unlimited scope, but each of the accusations is lacking in specificity,” he said.
Browne contends that the scope of the allegations against his client were so multifarious that Phillip could not reasonably mount a defense.
“The extent of the allegations put up against my client are so vague that he cannot even begin to understand what he has to answer. It is a fundamental precept of any charge against a man, which exposes him to prison or any other like punishment, that it must be pleaded with a specificity that it leaves no doubt in the mind of the client as to what his answer should be. He has to frame his defense based on the allegations made against him. In other words, you can’t say diverse persons from various countries were bribed to come into St. Kitts and Nevis in order to vote for him to prevent Mr. Grant from winning,” he said after Wednesday’s proceedings.
In his application to the Court, Browne stated that Grant was not specific in his allegations of bribery as it related to persons overseas being facilitated to come to St. Kitts to vote, saying that no names of who “bribed” the individuals, nor how much they were paid, were provided.
Phillip, Minister of Sports and Youth Empowerment, said he is confident that he will remain the Parliamentary Representative for Constituency #4.
“Mr. Lindsay Grant has filed a petition against me and is seeking refuge of the Court. I’ve been in intense conversations with my lawyer Henry Browne and I’m extremely confident that our application to strike will be extremely successful. I’m anxious for this to be resolved so that I can continue the work of the people,” he said.
Grant’s position regarding the election petition is that more than 100 persons voted in Constituency #4 in the elections, whom he claims “have never ever resided” there.
“Since the January 2010 General Elections, I have objected to over 100 names on my list, who voted in the last election but who have never ever resided in Constituency #4. We rely on such principles of free and fair elections as we take the Election Petition to Court, on the 21st July, after which the People’s Action Movement will rightfully be seated in Constituency #4, where your political leader will become the Member of Parliament,” he said.
Grant’s legal team, led by Attorney Terrence Byron, was scheduled to respond to the strike out application Thursday morning, after which the Court is expected to render a decision. |
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