Jus­tice Ci­ce­ly Chase yes­ter­day threw out the chal­lenge to the suit brought to halt Bar­ba­dos’ Gen­er­al Elec­tions, say­ing she did not have ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the mat­ter and that it ought to have been brought be­fore an elec­tion court, adding the ac­tion was in­cor­rect­ly filed.

The judge’s rul­ing cleared the way for Bar­ba­di­ans to vote in to­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion, the first since the coun­try be­came a re­pub­lic last No­vem­ber.

The Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty led by in­cum­bent Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley con­trols 29 of the leg­is­la­ture’s 30 seats. Mot­t­ley said to­day’s vote would help pro­mote uni­ty in the face of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

Yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Chase heard ar­gu­ments from at­tor­ney Lalu Hanu­man, who brought the chal­lenge on be­half of St Thomas con­stituen­cy hope­ful Philip Natha­nial Cat­lyn, of the Bar­ba­dos Sov­er­eign­ty Par­ty (BSP), as well as Queen’s Coun­sel Al­rick Scott, who rep­re­sent­ed Pres­i­dent Dame San­dra Ma­son and Queen’s Coun­sel Roger Forde, who ap­peared for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Cat­lyn was seek­ing a re­strain­ing or­der against the hold­ing of to­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tions un­til “the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of thou­sands of elec­tors who are in quar­an­tine due to the zoonot­ic COVID-19 vi­ral pan­dem­ic is re­solved be­fore­hand.”

The suit chal­lenged Dame Ma­son’s dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment on De­cem­ber 27 last year, and the is­su­ing of Elec­tion Writs, say­ing the act was unau­tho­rised, con­trary to law and il­le­gal; ar­bi­trary, un­rea­son­able, ir­ra­tional, ir­reg­u­lar and an im­prop­er ex­er­cise of dis­cre­tion; that it was capri­cious, er­ro­neous, an ex­cess of ju­ris­dic­tion, ul­tra vires and an abuse of pow­er and that it was in con­flict with Sec­tion 6 of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Mon­day night, Mot­t­ley said she be­lieved the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind the le­gal ac­tion was the lack of readi­ness in the op­po­si­tion.

“Why? Why? WHY? Be­cause they know they are los­ing and they’re now try­ing every­thing to stop you from re­turn­ing the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty to gov­ern­ment and al­low­ing us to con­tin­ue the mis­sion of trans­for­ma­tion,” Mot­t­ley told sup­port­ers.

Mot­t­ley said she was not wor­ried be­cause “The case law, I’m no At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) now, but I used to be one and my mem­o­ry ain’t short and Dale [Mar­shall] knows and I know that there is case law in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean that makes it ab­solute­ly clear that the High Court has no ju­ris­dic­tion to sus­pend or to stop any elec­tion once the writ is is­sued, and that the on­ly court that can have any­thing to do at all with an elec­tion is a spe­cial elec­tion court, and the on­ly ju­ris­dic­tion it has is to de­ter­mine what hap­pened in the elec­tion, so the elec­tion would have to hap­pen be­fore the elec­tion court can pass and ren­der a judge­ment.”