DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has de­clined to stop an elec­tion of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East Women’s League af­ter a long-stand­ing par­ty mem­ber brought le­gal ac­tion over be­ing al­leged­ly ex­clud­ed from the poll.

Jus­tice Christo­pher Sieuc­hand de­clined to grant an in­junc­tion be­ing sought by 81-year-old Bernadette Shirley Blen­man, of Ste Madeleine, as her ap­pli­ca­tion came up for hear­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, hours be­fore the elec­tion was due to take place at the Vista­bel­la Re­gion­al Com­plex.

In the ap­pli­ca­tion, Blen­man, through her at­tor­neys Matthew Gayle and Richard Ro­jas, of New City Cham­bers, were ei­ther seek­ing to have her par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion or to stop it (the elec­tion) pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of her sub­stan­tive case over her el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to vote.

Blen­man, who has been a mem­ber of the par­ty since the 1960s, claimed that sev­er­al weeks ago a par­ty group she found­ed was no longer recog­nised by the par­ty.

She claimed that al­though she and oth­er mem­bers of the now-de­funct group were ad­vised to join an­oth­er par­ty group, they were un­able to do so.

She claimed that the elec­tion was nec­es­sary fol­low­ing a pub­lic spat be­tween MP Bri­an Man­ning and con­stituen­cy chair­per­son Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, which re­sult­ed in the res­ig­na­tion of the en­tire ex­ec­u­tive of the con­stituen­cy.

She claimed that when the par­ty’s sec­re­tari­at is­sued the no­tice for the con­stituen­cy’s Women’s League an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, ear­li­er this month, it in­di­cat­ed that on­ly mem­bers of par­ty groups and those in good fi­nan­cial stand­ing were al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate.

“In my years with the con­stituen­cy and the par­ty, there has nev­er been a uni­formed ap­proach to im­ple­ment­ing the rule that one must be a mem­ber of a Par­ty Group. The rule has al­ways been ap­plied in an ad hoc man­ner. I am cog­nisant of the ef­fect of the rule be­cause I am now the vic­tim of it,” Blen­man said in her court fil­ings.

She claimed that she filed the lit­i­ga­tion as the re­quire­ment pre­vent­ed sev­er­al oth­er fe­male mem­bers, in­clud­ing those from her for­mer par­ty group, from par­tic­i­pat­ing. She claimed Man­ning made rep­re­sen­ta­tions on their be­half but to no avail.

“I will add that it is my fer­vent be­lief that should this elec­tion con­tin­ue with­out the fi­nan­cial fe­male mem­bers of the par­ty and con­stituen­cy be­ing al­lowed to vote, this will leave an in­deli­ble stain on the par­ty,” she said.

At­tached to her court fil­ings was an af­fi­davit from for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary and long-time mem­ber Ash­ton Ford, who sup­port­ed Blen­man’s claim that the par­ty group mem­ber­ship re­quire­ment was un­law­ful.

“This is a fla­grant abuse of pow­er and/or dis­cre­tion by the Gen­er­al Coun­cil,” Ford said.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the par­ty claimed that its lawyers, deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu, and at­tor­ney Sasha Paula Singh, who rep­re­sent­ed gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, sub­mit­ted that Blen­man was in fact a recog­nised mem­ber of the sec­ond par­ty group and was nev­er barred from par­tic­i­pat­ing as claimed in her court fil­ings.

Based on the po­si­tion ad­vanced by the par­ty, Jus­tice Sieuc­hand ruled that an in­junc­tion was no longer nec­es­sary as Blen­man did not re­quire the re­lief be­ing sought.

Jus­tice Sieuc­hand gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of Blen­man’s sub­stan­tive case over the le­gal­i­ty of the par­ty group pre­req­ui­site, which was deemed ur­gent and trans­ferred to an­oth­er judge to case man­age.

In its re­lease, the par­ty de­scribed the out­come of the ap­pli­ca­tion as a two-fold suc­cess, as it not­ed that the elec­tion was al­lowed to go ahead and its set­tled prac­tice over el­i­gi­bil­i­ty through par­ty group mem­ber­ship was es­sen­tial­ly af­firmed.