Franklyn ‘surprised’ no injunction filed

Former Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn says there has been no recorded legal move to stop the Government from continuing the sitting of the Lower House.

Yesterday, former Opposition Leader and leader of the Alliance Party for Progress (APP) Bishop Joseph Atherley told Barbados TODAY he fully expected Parliament to be temporarily suspended as a result of the constitutional motion before the High Court questioning its validity.

However, Franklyn said that while the Mia Amor Mottley Administration has the right to continue with Government business, the attorneys who brought the constitutional motion, failed to file for an injunction for the court to make a decision regarding the suspension of the sitting of the Lower House.

“The side that made the application to the court as far as I understand, did not file for an injunction. So, if the Government believes that they are doing the right thing and the court doesn’t stop them, well they will go ahead. I think it is just a strategy. “What [former Attorney General] Adriel Brathwaite’s lawyer should have done is to ask for an injunction and then the Judge would have to say yes or no. And at that point, if she says no, they could have made an urgent application before the Court of Appeal and then even to the Caribbean Court of Justice, but they didn’t do that,” Franklyn explained.

On Wednesday February 9, Brathwaite, through his attorney’s, Queen’s Counsel Garth Patterson and Michelle Russell, filed a suit challenging the validity of Parliament on the basis that not all 21 members of the Senate had been appointed.

The matter had been adjourned until February 25, however, the Lower House met on Tuesday and several Bills were passed.

Franklyn said while he is not surprised that Bills have been passed despite the ongoing court case, he is surprised that Patterson did not file the injunction.

“This Government does not behave honourably. I remember in October 2018 they promised Senator Monique Taitt on the floor of the Senate that they would come back to the Water Authority Bills because something was wrong in the legislation. “They promised to allow it to pass and then they would fix it in a couple of months. It ain’t get fixed yet.

“First of all, because there is no Opposition in Parliament, Government should follow the procedures and publish those Bills that they are purporting to pass,” Franklyn said.

“When you hear people say they beg to move that this bill be read the first time, what that entails is that it will be laid in Parliament and then published in the Official Gazette and circulated in the country to give the populace time to see it and react to it and then come back sometime after and do what they call the second reading. But now you have no opposition and nobody to check behind Government. I cried out often in the last session that they are now following the normal procedures,” he added. (AH)