Judge OKs DPP review bid
Published:Wednesday | May 25, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
Supreme Court judge Donald McIntosh has granted leave for Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn to seek a judicial review of the order for her to be called as a witness in the Cuban light-bulb trial.
McIntosh also granted a stay of the trial pending the outcome of the hearing in the Judicial Review Court.
The matter was heard in chambers at the Supreme Court yesterday. A date has not yet been set for the hearing.
Last month, Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey granted an application by the defence for the DPP to be called as a witness. Pusey also made an order that Llewellyn stay out of the courtroom while prosecution witness, Rodney Chin, gives evidence.
Chin is the main prosecution witness in the corruption trial brought against former junior energy minister, Kern Spencer, and his co-accused, Coleen Wright.
Llewellyn is contending that the issuing of the subpoena for her to be called as a witness is an abuse of the process of the court.
The DPP, who was represented yesterday by Jeremy Taylor, her deputy, is seeking an order to quash Pusey's ruling for her to be absent from the courtroom while Chin is testifying. Llewellyn also wants an order to quash the magistrate's decision not to set aside the subpoena which was served on her.
Chin was charged jointly with Spencer initially; the defence wants to ascertain how and why he became a Crown witness.
exercise of discretion
The DPP says the reasons for discontinuing criminal proceedings against Chin are the only evidence that other witnesses are unable to give, but under the Constitution of Jamaica she is not obliged to disclose the reasons for the exercise of her discretion.
Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, who is representing Pusey, had opposed the application.
The DPP's application is the latest in a series of legal wrangles among the Crown, defence and the magistrate in the trial.
Spencer and Wright are before the court on corruption and money-laundering charges arising from the implementation of the Cuban light bulb programme.