Foreign Affairs Minister Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble says the petitioners challenging his parliamentary seat and that of Prime Minister Godwin Friday should “pay a heavy political price for a long time” for disrespecting “the will of the people.”
Bramble spoke to iWitness News outside the High Court in Kingstown on Wednesday, following closing arguments in the constitutional petitions challenging their eligibility to sit in the House of Assembly.
Unity Labour Party (ULP) candidates Luke Browne and Augustus Carlos Williams filed the petitions after losing to Bramble in East Kingstown and Friday in the Northern Grenadines during the November general election.
The petitioners contend that both New Democratic Party lawmakers are disqualified from serving in parliament because they voluntarily acquired Canadian citizenship.
Bramble said he has always been convinced the respondents will win the case.
And as a layperson listening in court today, my conviction was confirmed today. It’s a simple case of the former administration—really and truly, they’re rejecting the will of the people because they knew all along they can’t win this case,” Bramble said.
He noted that Friday has served in parliament since the early 2000s, maintaining that the petitioners would have challenged his eligibility earlier had they believed their case could succeed.
“But they brought it after they lost; and for me, it’s a serious insult to the people of this country. They have disrespected the will of the people, and they should pay a heavy political price for a very long time for this,” Bramble said.
iWitness News also spoke with lead counsel for the petitioners, Stuart Young, Senior Counsel, who said “absolutely nothing” in the closing submissions by lead defence counsel Anand Ramlogan surprised him or his legal team.
“… And it really has not affected the strength of our case whatsoever for the petitioners, and I come out of there still feeling very confident, and we wait till the completion of the respondents’ case tomorrow, and then we respond as is the natural course of these types of things, and then it’ll be up to her ladyship to make a decision,” Young said, referring to presiding judge Justice Gertel Thom.
Young agreed that the matter is a historic case, though he insisted nothing presented moved the petitioners.
He maintained that the defence was “throwing a seine and hoping to pull something in”, just as he had predicted. He said he did not want to say more than that at this stage.