Judge dismisses constitutional challenge to Opposition Leader

The High Court has dismissed a constitutional challenge against Bishop Joseph Atherley’s appointment as Leader of the Opposition.

Hearing the case before Justice Shona Griffith on Wednesday, the former leader of Solutions Barbados, Grenville Phillips, had sought a declaration from the court to define what “support” in law means, particularly with reference to the constitutional requirement that the Opposition Leader acquires parliamentary support in order to take up the post.

Bishop Atherley, then a Barbados Labour Party MP in the one-party control of the 30-seat House of Assembly following the 2018 general election, then dramatically announced he was crossing the floor to be the sole voice of opposition, taking up the vacant post of Opposition Leader.

But while Bishop Atherley was the key party in the case, Phillips had sued Attorney General Dale Marshall as the defendant, representing the Crown.

Phillips on Thursday night declined to comment on the ruling, but Barbados TODAY has learned that Phillips, who announced his retirement from the leadership following his failed bid for St George North in the November 2020 by-election had failed in his attempt to get the Attorney General to provide an interpretation of the word “support”.

The matter, which first raised its head during the by-election, was Thursday evening described by the Opposition Leader as a nuisance action.

Bishop Atherley told  Barbados TODAY: “I respect anybody’s right to bring a challenge even though I see it as a nuisance action.  I would never have approached the Governor-General about appointment to that position even though I thought it was needful if I thought that the action could not have been properly pursued and instituted under the Constitution of Barbados.

“Those who spoke to me, who are legally inclined… two or three people …prominent people too, have also reinforced that opinion from the beginning and subsequently, and even since this case was brought. Some argue it shouldn’t even have been heard the way it was heard.”

The Opposition Leader said it nevertheless shows that justice is still much served in the interest of the democratic practice in Barbados.

“The action of course would not have been brought against me even though I would have been principal party to it,” said the Opposition Leader. “It would have been brought against the Governor-General, hence the Office of the Attorney General would have to have defended the position taken by the Governor-General.

Neither Attorney General Marshall nor Principal Crown Counsel Marsha Lougheed who represented the AG in court was immediately available for comment.

Section 74 of the Constitution of Barbados, which establishes a Leader of the Opposition as part of the executive branch of Government, states that the Governor-General must select a member of the House of Assembly whom the viceroy judges to be “best able to command the support of a majority of those members who do not support the Government”.

But contemplating the possibility that “there is no such person”, as was the case in  2018, the Governor-General has the power to select the “member of that House who, in [the G-G’s] judgment, commands the support of the largest single group of such members who are prepared to support one leader”.

(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)