Gail Alexan­der

More Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress le­gal ac­tion on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion is com­ing.

The Op­po­si­tion yes­ter­day filed an in­junc­tion against Gov­ern­ment, seek­ing to pre­vent Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lors and al­der­men from con­tin­u­ing to act in those po­si­tions af­ter coun­cils’ orig­i­nal ex­pi­ra­tion date of De­cem­ber 3.

The Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly ex­tend­ed the term to De­cem­ber 2023, when coun­cils will now ex­pire.

Speak­ing at last night’s UNC Vir­tu­al Re­port, how­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the par­ty’s sec­ond le­gal move to en­sure its chal­lenge of Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the LG term is done speed­i­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to the UNC’s first le­gal move on the mat­ter—last week’s case filed against post­pone­ment of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion which was caused by Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was see­ing a “kind of per­ver­sion of the course of jus­tice in a dif­fer­ent way.”

She said the court set “some very strange dates to con­tin­ue UNC’s mat­ter—in Jan­u­ary 2023!”

“I was very dis­turbed at their rul­ing. So, our lawyers, Anand Ram­lo­gan and oth­ers, filed an­oth­er mat­ter in the court against Gov­ern­ment about these elec­tions and seek­ing an in­junc­tion to pre­vent Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cers from con­tin­u­ing to act as coun­cil­lors and al­der­men af­ter De­cem­ber 3.”

She said this was be­cause coun­cils’ terms ex­pire at De­cem­ber 3, 2022.

“There­fore, we filed an in­junc­tion which will take this mat­ter—if they refuse it—to the Court of Ap­peal and Privy Coun­cil,” she said.

“You can’t set this case for Jan­u­ary 2023, as this will make the mat­ter—and what­ev­er the courts or­ders in 2023—re­dun­dant, a waste of time.

“So, you have to go now be­fore the term ex­pires to deal with call­ing of elec­tions.

“So, we ap­plied for in­ter­im leave un­der Sec­tion 18 of the Ju­di­cial Re­view Act—an or­der that this ap­pli­ca­tion be deemed fit for ur­gent, ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­ter­im in­junc­tion will re­strain all who hold of­fice as coun­cil­lors and al­der­men who were elect­ed on De­cem­ber 2, 2019, pend­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion of UNC’s mat­ter.

“So, you won’t hold your of­fices. But I’m ad­vis­ing my coun­cil­lors—don’t pan­ic, you’ll have your chance again.”

The ap­pli­ca­tion al­so calls for the court’s case man­age­ment di­rec­tions last week to be var­ied to en­sure the courts gives its rul­ing on or be­fore De­cem­ber 3, 2022.

“They want to push you to 2023, so we’re go­ing to fight them!”

She al­so said she re­ceived What­sApp mes­sages al­leg­ing PNM op­er­a­tors had “called in gang lead­ers,” of­fer­ing con­tracts to have a cease fire be­cause they want to end the cur­rent crime hike.

“That’s not the way to han­dle crime—you don’t re­ward crim­i­nals! I call on Gov­ern­ment to say if it’s true. We’ll file Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion ques­tions to find out who they’re giv­ing these con­tracts to. I find this very, very dis­turb­ing ...their an­swer is to of­fer the gang lead­ers con­tracts?”

She al­so an­nounced UNC’s hold­ing a Na­tion­al Con­gress on De­cem­ber 4 in Cou­va (same day as PNM’s con­ven­tion).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said she had “a lit­tle sore throat,” shared her speak­ing time with ac­tivists.

MP Van­dana Mo­hit ques­tioned the where­abouts of the $1,000 one-off fu­el grant promised in the 2023 Bud­get—fol­low­ing fu­el price hikes—to 175,000 so­cial as­sis­tance re­cip­i­ents.

Sean Sobers, mean­while, said he at­tempt­ed to lis­ten the “hor­ren­dous” (sic) au­dio tape of the LM­CS divers in the Paria pipeline, aired at the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria/LM­CS Div­ing Tragedy.

“The lev­el of tor­ture they’d have en­dured—if that isn’t enough for a gov­ern­ment to fall to its knees, demit of­fice and call elec­tions, I don’t know what will.”

MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, ex­press­ing an­guish at the tape, said there must be no for­give­ness for the PNM.