Judge awaits court order

Senior Resident Magistrate (RM) Judith Pusey has yet to receive a Supreme Court order stopping her from proceeding with the case against former junior minister Kern Spencer.

Spencer and co-accused Coleen Wright, both charged with fraud and corruption, have been scheduled to return to the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on Thurs-day, by which time Pusey is expected to have been served with the court order.

"The challenge is that you cannot serve civil processes in the precincts of the court," Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Caroline Hay told The Gleaner yesterday.

The order against Pusey was granted last Wednesday following an application made by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn. Supreme Court judge Horace Marsh had ruled that the order must be served on Pusey by November 17.

Apparent bias

Llewellyn is alleging that Pusey, in the conduct of the case, has demonstrated apparent bias, which falls within the category of disqualification by conduct. An application for leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to bar Pusey from continuing to try the case is set for November 24.

Pusey should have ruled yesterday whether the case should proceed or be thrown out as an abuse of the process of the court.

The defence lawyers have accused the DPP of prosecutorial misconduct and have asked for disclosures as to how Spencer's co-accused, Rodney Chin, came to be the Crown's star witness.

Yesterday, Pusey asked Hay to show her a copy of the court order, but defence lawyers K.D. Knight and Patrick Atkinson objected on the grounds that they had not been served with a copy of the court order.

Spencer and Wright are accused of benefiting improperly from the Cuban light-bulb programme.