High Court Judge Madam Justice Jacqueline Cornelius has reserved her decision in the four lawsuits against the Government and its COVID-19 directives.
After hearing evidence for several days in the matters and closing arguments from attorneys for the claimants Hal Gollop Q.C. and Neil Marshall as well as Queen’s Counsel Leslie Haynes along with counsel Gregory Nicholls and Kashawn Wood on behalf of the Attorney General and Commissioner of Police the case wrapped up today.
Gollop told the No. 12 Supreme Court when the matters resumed this morning, “We are not considering the efficacy of any measures that have been brought to bear to deal with the COVID situation. All of us as responsible citizens can identify with the efficacy. There has been a rupture on life so we are not testing efficacy . . . we are testing legality.”
He also charged that Queen’s Counsel Haynes and the Attorney General were “slightly at variance” with each other when it came to the Emergency Powers Act.
He added: “We urge the court [to find] that there has been such confusion put before the court by the evidence provided by the functionaries, such confusion by these functionaries, that one could not but come to the conclusion that there was irrationality, there was arbitrariness,” said Gollop who again maintained that the measures were enforced without parliamentary scrutiny.
“We cannot get away from this requirement of parliamentary scrutiny.
“One could not but say these measures are wholly an abuse of discretion,” he added in response to the closing argument by Haynes and his team.
Gollop and Marshall are representing Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn, shopkeeper Adrian Kellman of Kermit’s Bar and Benson Straker of Benson’s Minimart.
Kellman is challenging the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit’s closure of his Thornbury Hill, Christ Church bar while Straker is suing the Attorney General and Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith, alleging they acted unlawfully and beyond their legal power of authority in enforcing the Emergency Management (Amendment) Act, which governs the directives.
The two applications brought by Straker are Benson’s Minimart versus the AG and the Commissioner; and Ricky Straker versus the Commissioner.
Senator Franklyn is challenging the manner in which the Emergency Management Act was imposed by Government to control the spread of COVID-19. He charges that Government has been enforcing directives that have not been approved by Parliament.
(fernellaweddernburn@barbadostoday.bb)
