In what is being described as a landmark decision, the High Court has ruled that Government cannot unilaterally make changes to the General Orders governing employment. In a two-part civil suit brought by nine teachers against the Ministry of Education back in 2017, the educators claimed that there was a unilateral change in their terms and conditions “occasioned by the suspension, termination or discontinuation of the grant of one term’s …
A major section of the Drug Abuse (Prevention and Control) Act which placed a “reverse burden of proof” on an accused has been deemed unconstitutional by a high court judge. And with that decision, one of the men in a 2018 high profile drug case will not have to face judge and jury. “The provisions of Section 42(1) of the Drug Abuse (Prevention and Control) Act operate so as to …
There was another adjournment yesterday when the judicial review of Magistrate Graveney Bannister’s decision in his Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Warren Mottley came up for hearing in the No. 6 Supreme Court. This time the adjournment was to allow lead attorneys to iron out issues “pertinent to the resolution to the application for judicial review”, said Justice Shona Griffith. It was on December 23, last year, that Magistrate …
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The bid by Irish millionaire John Paul McManus to have the Coroner’s Inquest into his wife Emma McManus’ death at their palatial Sandy Lane home halted by the High Court, has failed. Ruling that the inquest can continue, Justice Shona Griffith found that allegations of bias by McManus towards Coroner Graveney Bannister were misconceived. In addition, she has left it up to the coroner to decide if he will hold …
A coroner’s inquest into the death of billionaire businessman JP McManus’s daughter-in-law Emma McManus is to go ahead in Barbados, local media have reported.
The year 2022 was one of landmark judicial cases.
It started with the constitutional challenge to the snap general election called by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, two years before it was constitutionally due. The action brought by attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman on behalf of Philip Catlyn, challenged Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s decision to call the election while the COVID-19 pandemic was raging.
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Hundreds of primary and secondary school teachers are being denied a second term’s leave because of the failure of a High Court judge to deliver a written decision.That has been revealed by the president of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell who said that 15 months after Madame Justice Shona Griffith overturned the decision by the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (METVT) to stop allowing a second term’s leave, teachers are still waiting to benefit from the ruling.And he said the affected educators were frustrated.“Teachers continue to suffer burnout and even though there is a legal mechanism drafted to allow them to re-energise after the first 15 years and subsequently after every five years of service, that right has been taken away from those who wish to exercise it,” he said.
The spokesman for the business community has called on law enforcement authorities to go after importers of illegal guns, regardless of who and where in society they are, as she expressed the group’s concern about the recent gunplay in the country.President of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Trisha Tannis has also urged Government to make amendments to the Bail Act to prevent people on murder charges from easily posting bail.Sharing business’ concern about a spike in gun-related crime that included five killings last week, Tannis said the time had come to hold accountable all those responsible for bringing illegal firearms into the island.“As a country, they have told us that we have invested in scanners at ports of entry. It is difficult to think that in an island of 166 square miles that we [don’t] have intelligence that tells us where the issues are, and to our minds the only issue we have is one of accountability.
Government has signalled its intention to appeal recent decisions in which accused men were awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation after the courts found their constitutional rights were infringed.This was made clear on Friday by Attorney General Dale Marshall who said the State will challenge the rulings of Justices Cecil McCarthy and Cicely Chase who awarded Pedro Ellis and Larry Patrick Agard a combined $155 000.Justice Chase awarded Agard $95 000 for the 14-year delay in having his matter heard, while Justice McCarthy awarded murder accused Agard $60 000 after he ruled that his constitutional rights to a fair hearing within a reasonable time and to bail had been breached.Ellis had also been awarded $75 000 by Justice Shona Griffith for being unlawfully detained for 18 days after he was acquitted of murder.“In each of those cases, the issue was the delay that besets the criminal system and how it has infringed individual’s constitutional rights and in each of those cases, those people got damages awarded. I can tell you now that I have given instructions that we are to appeal two of them. We’re fighting back on some of the legal fundamentals, we’re going to appeal the last two decisions,” Marshall announced at a press conference at police headquarters.