ST GEORGE'S, Grenada, CMC:
JAMAICAN LAWYER, Hugh Wildman on Monday said he would challenge the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) for its refusal to appoint him Grenada's Attorney-General.
Wildman told reporters yesterday that his action is to highlight the decision of the JLSC to decline his nomination by the government to be recommended to the Governor-General for appointment to the office of Attorney-General.
There was much controversy in February surrounding Wildman's proposed appointment, especially from the Grenada Bar Association (GBA) .
After consulting with both the GBA and Wildman, the JLSC recommended that the Governor-General should not agree with the appointment.
"I think that decision was highly flawed, it was irregular and in breach of all the tenets of natural justice," Wildman said.
Wildman, who was subsequently appointed Special Legal Counsel to the government, has retained former Trinidad and Tobago attorney-general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj to deal with the matter on his behalf.
DECISION CHALLENGED
"He (Maharaj) will have the decision challenged in a court of law and do everything within the ambit of the law to vindicate my character and reputation," he said.
Only last week the government said it would write the St Lucia-based JLSC in an effort to clear up allegations about Wildman's conduct which surfaced during the four-week strike by lawyers in February. Maharaj said his visit to Grenada at this time "is to try and assist the people of Grenada and the Caribbean in having to deal with a very important issue which affects the constitutional human and fundamental rights of Grenada and the Caribbean".
"The issue is whether a tribunal, no matter how high that tribunal is, can make a decision which affects the rights, interest and legitimate expectations of an individual without specifically telling that individual what the tribunal holds against him and giving him an adequate opportunity to answer or rebut that allegation and if necessary to call evidence in respect against the allegation," Maharaj said.
FRADULENT EVIDENCE
Meanwhile the Grenada Bar Association (GBA) yesterday denied that it used fraudulent evidence to block the appointment of Wildman as the island's Attorney-General earlier this year.
Last month the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, Barry Collymore, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the government had received a letter showing that the evidence used by the GBA was false.
"The Bar Association presented a dossier to the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, contained in that dossier was an e-mail implicating Mr. Wildman of improper conduct. The gentleman who that e-mail was credited to has since written the government of Grenada saying he sent no such e-mail," Collymore said.
