“PLP branch wants PM to back Smith for Free Town” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “The Progressive Liberal Party Montagu Branch has written to Prime Minister Perry Christie asking for a meeting with the party’s National General Council in a last ditch attempt to have Senator Frank Smith ratified as the Free Town candidate instead of Wayne Munroe.

The National General Council (NGC) is scheduled to meet tonight. Last week, sources told The Tribune that it is expected that Mr. Munroe QC will be ratified as the areas standard bearer.”

As the ‘war’ for Free Town rages on within the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP); with the National General Council (NGC) of the party backing new comer and former DNA candidate, Wayne Munroe and the Free Town (formerly Montagu) constituency association backing former member of parliament for the PLP, Frank Smith, a new ‘war’ is being laid out between the Executive branch of the government and the Judiciary.

“AG concerned at people undermining Judiciary in calling for Baha Mar detail” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “Following Dame Joan Sawyer’s suggestion that there were no grounds present to seal in court the new deal to open Baha Mar, Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson said she is ‘deeply concerned’ about people ‘who know better’ undermining the integrity of the judiciary and called on right thinking people to ‘cease and desist’ these public pronouncements.

When asked to what people should expect once the deal is made public. Ms. Maynard Gibson shied away from revealing any intimate details and instead pointed to ‘revered gentlemen’ and women who have reminded her that there are detractors who try to distract those doing the work of the people.”

Who are these “revered gentlemen’ and women”?

Is the Attorney General for one moment suggesting that former Count of Appeals President Dame Joan Sawyer is a ‘detractor’ and is undermining the Judiciary?

Is the Attorney General suggesting that anyone that questions the Executive, is thereby a detractor of the Executive and should know better?

Is the Attorney General attempting to send a ‘subtle’ message/warning Dame Sawyer, as her government did to Justice Indra Charles?

Last week Dame Joan Sawyer issued a statement, which I saw as her position of the Baha Mar deal as based on the laws of The Bahamas from her years of experience.  In the statement she said; “…there is much confusion over how the judgment of a publicly heard civil case can be sealed so that no one, outside of the judge who heard the case, Mrs. Maynard-Gibson and lawyers for the parties involved, would know the contents.

She said clearly where there was no matter of defense, public safety or public order in effect to cause the decision not to be made public.”

Justice Dame Sawyer intimates that she sees no grounds present to seal in court the deal to open Baha Mar’, I totally agree with her, as I would like to point out that it was a foreign entity, in this instances, that requested that a Bahamian court do so with our courts acquiescing to their request; I ask whatever happened to us being a sovereign nation?  Remember this is one of the main reasons as to why the Attorney General’s office and the Progressive Liberal Party government was so ‘offended’ by the filing of Chapter 11 in a US court by the developer, Sarkis Izmirlian?

But as we move past the issue of the deal being sealed to protect all parties involved until the deal was completed, the question now becomes why is it still sealed?  A myriad of questions stand before the Attorney General and her government as it relates to the Baha Mar resort, the handling or mishandling of the developer filing for bankruptcy protection which forced the resort into receivership and ultimately closing it for over a year with the lost of over 1,500 jobs but yet the Attorney General now wishes to attempt to berate Justice Dame Sawyer and others for expressing their legal opinion on the matter; is the Attorney general aware that the Pindling era is over?

What is even more interesting is that all of this comes in the wake of a human rights report released last week by the United States, wherein the Bahamas government was accused of the ‘intimidation of nongovernmentmental organizations’, an accusation which Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration labeled as being ‘inaccurate’ and in some cases [having] incomplete information.”, but yet here they are once again seeming to be up to ‘it’ again

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

END