Tales From The COURTS – Part IV

Will the President of the Barbados Bar Association intervene?

In this edition of the series, Tales From The Courts, we are going to concentrate primarily on one case only that comes to us from a member of the general public and on which we touched in Tales From The Courts Part II.

However, first, the latest from the business community as conveyed to the country by the Nation.

NATION REPORT: The Nation report Budget needs is to be found at. It appears that bankers and businessmen now want special judges budgeted for to hear commercial matters. This, despite the fact that of all the cases that are heard, commercial matters take pride of place (albeit very slowly) due to the power of wealth, thus making a nonsense of the maxim that justice cannot be bought or delayed. Banks worldwide have been bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. But now the banks and businesses single-handedly responsible for the economic chaos that has hit the world and having received hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, now want pride of place in the judicial system over and above that of the very people who have had to bail them out and whose financial woes they are completely responsible for.

BU agrees the need for adequate funding to be made available to the Justice System. However, BU holds the view that efforts should be directed towards the firing of incompetent staff and judges starting with the Registrar, the Chief Marshall and the Master and the hiring of competent replacements. We believe that what is there should be fixed first, before more money is spent creating another layer of incompetence and waste of taxpayers’ money.

The point was hammered home in a letter to the editor in the Barbados Advocate of 24 June 2012.

TALES FROM THE COURTS PART II: As said, we touched on the following matter anonymously in Part II of this series. We now elaborate, but in order to protect our source, we continue to respect their anonymity and change names and redact certain details in quoted correspondence.

BU wishes to state that the following are allegations and it takes no position on them at this stage.

This is a case involving a complaint to the Barbados Bar Association against one of its members. This member also happens to be a member of parliament and as such, we rely on the aspect of Public Interest to negate any argument of malice. We consider that when allegations of this nature involve one of our elected representatives, it is the public’s right to know.

To be clear, in reporting this matter previously, BU not only did not give names, it created a filter so that any comments or submissions that may have named names would be held in moderation and not published. We also provided the opportunity for the attorney-at-law/member of parliament concerned to see that matters were sorted out if he considered himself to be at fault and BU makes no judgement as to whether or not he was at fault or whether he has attempted to rectify the matter.

The essence of the complaint to the BBA consists of the following:

1.On 26 October 2011, attorney-at-law the “His Hon.” Mr A – MP wrote to his clients, Mrs B et al, stating:

“Re: Sale/Purchase of Lot 24, Thompson Land, Licorish Village, St Michael – Walter Forde to Daphne Parris et al for the sum of $37,200.00

Reference is made to the above captioned matter.

Please note that Urban Development Commission has sent a cheque to the Vendor’s attorneys-at-law for the sum of $27,900.29 being their portion of the purchase price.

Kindly therefore let me have a cheque of $4,269.71 the balance of the purchase price due from you.

Your fullest cooperation in this matter is anticipated.”

2. Mrs B alleges that on 03 November 2011, she paid Mr A in full for the transaction, inclusive of his lawyer’s fees.

3. On or about 29 May 2012, Mrs B alleges the landlord telephoned her stating that the landlord had not yet received payment in respect of the sale of the land and asking Mrs B to contact Mr A to find out the reason for the hold-up.

4. Mrs B instead telephoned the attorney-at-law for the landlord, Mr C, to discover if he could throw any light on the matter. Mr C’s office allegedly advised Mrs B that they were still awaiting the 10% of the purchase price payable by her which Mrs B alleges to have paid to Mr A some 7 months prior.

5. Mrs B also alleges that she was advised by Mr C’s office that on two separate occasions appointments to close the sale had been scheduled with Mr A, but that Mr A had not turned up and that interest was now due and payable for late payment.

6. Mrs B alleges that she had been advised by Mr A’s office on 03 November 2011 when she paid Mr A as stated in 2., that any hold up in her receiving the title deeds to the property would be due to delays at the Land Registry.

7. Mrs B then telephoned Mr A’s office and allegedly made it clear that she was not going to be responsible for the payment of interest due to late payment, as it was his fault. The response was that Mr A was aware of the interest for late payment and would “take care of it”. Mrs B also asked for an explanation as to why Mr A had not attended the two meetings set for closing and was allegedly told that he had “parliamentary things” to do. We note that, although an MP, Mr A does not hold a cabinet or executive position in Parliament, so his scheduling of closing meetings that conflicted with his parliamentary requires a far fuller explanation out of courtesy alone.

8. Mrs B demanded that Mr A personally call her back and explain himself. This, she alleges, he has never done.

BU has been careful to remain neutral in this matter and affords “His Hon.” Mr A – MP the opportunity to refute and explain his side of the issue and will accord his explanation its very own Tales From The Courts (hopefully in time to meet our deadline for Part V). We would think that His Hon. A – MP would welcome the opportunity, as a member of parliament, to educate the electorate on just how the law and this type of transaction works and to correct any misconceptions or inaccuracies that may have occurred as a result of this report. And, as a responsible parliamentarian, we do expect Mr A to respond so that public confidence in our elected parliamentarians (if any) is not eroded (any more than it already is across BOTH parties in the political divide).

We reflect that one party, now in opposition, is almost single-handedly responsible for the demise of the Justice System and the other, now in office, has so far failed to provide the adequate remedies and powers and back-up that the Chief Justice needs to correct the situation. From where we stand, both parties are now complicit and equally culpable for the state of the Justice System and the knock-on effect this has had on Barbados’ finances. And we are going to hit them both constantly until they do something about it. We will ensure that there is nowhere to hide.

Mrs B et al have now filed a complaint with the disciplinary committee of the Barbados Bar Association against “His Hon. Mr A – MP. BU will continue to follow this case and will, in due course (hopefully months and not years) report on the outcome of the deliberations of the BBA. BU has a copy of Mrs B’s complaint and will most willingly publish Mr A’s defense.

Once again, we urge the general public to do as Mrs B has done and to send BU their stories and complaints about the justice system, being assured that we will treat their submissions sensitively and anonymously, if they so request.