Judge quashes DPP's plan to oust Pusey
Published:Friday | November 26, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn has been denied the go-ahead to apply to the Judicial Review Court to have Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey removed from the Cuban light-bulb trial.
Supreme Court judge Lloyd Hibbert dismissed the DPP's application on the basis that it was premature and ill-founded.
The judge said no proper application was made to Pusey to recuse herself from the case. He said there was no order of refusal from Pusey which could properly form the basis of judicial review proceedings.
The DPP was seeking to have Pusey removed from the case on the grounds of apparent bias arising from alleged comments made in court.
"We made this application in good faith and we will review and reconsider our position," Llewellyn said yesterday.
Former junior minister Kern Spencer and co-accused Coleen Wright, who are charged with fraud and corruption, are to return to the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court next Monday.
Pusey should have ruled earlier this month whether the case should proceed or be thrown out as an abuse of the process of the court.
The DPP first filed documents in the RM court asking Pusey to disqualify herself from the case so the trial could start over before another RM. Pusey said the application to have the case relisted was not on the court sheet before her. Attempts by Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Caroline Hay to have the case relisted for later in the day or the next morning were refused. It was then that the DPP took the issue to the Supreme Court and got an order from Justice Horace Marsh stopping Pusey from continuing with the case until the application was made yesterday.
Accused of apparent bias
Llewellyn was alleging that inthe conduct of the matter, Puseyhas demonstrated apparent biasand falls within the category of disqualification by conduct.
Hibbert also found that the grounds on which the application was being sought were insufficient to support the application as they did not spell out the relief being sought.
Hay, who represented the DPP, sought an amendment but Queen's Counsel Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, who represented Pusey, opposedthe application. Samuels-Brown described the affidavits filed to support the application as hearsay and argued that they were of no relevance and amounted to an abuse of the process of the court.
Hibbert did not grant the amendment.
The trial has sparked complaints by the defence lawyers that the DPP was guilty of prosecutorial misconduct. The claims stemmed from a statement given by the Crown's star witness, businessman Rodney Chin, when he was Spencer's co-accused in the case.