Cayman leader calls local lawyers "stupid"

Thursday, January 29, 2004

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands: As Caymanian Bar Association (CBA) members voted to bring judicial review proceedings seeking to overturn the Cayman Islands Cabinet's conferring of 2,850 Caymanian Status (belongership) grants last year, the Leader of Government Business, Mr McKeeva Bush, was quoted as saying that the threat of an action was "nothing but political posturing."

Mr Bush dismissed the potential action as baseless. "If they are so stupid to believe they can upset the Governor in Council for decisions taken when the Attorney General was present, let them try," he was quoted as saying.

The CBA's decision to proceed with the action comes after it received a requested opinion about the legality of the Cabinet's Status grants from one of Britain's leading barristers, David Pannick, QC.

In Mr Pannick's opinion, there are strong arguable grounds for contending that the Cabinet acted unlawfully in using an exceptional power to make the high number of Status grants for "special reasons."

Sources indicate that 15 of the 28 CBA members attending their annual general meeting voted in favour of the action, while nine voted against, and four abstained. The vote in favour of the action authorised the CBA's 10-member Council to proceed with the court action. 

One CBA member said it was one of the largest turnouts for one of their meetings in recent times, with nearly half of the 58 registered and paid-up members attending. 

The action will probably be filed soon, based on Mr Pannick's concerns that the prospects of a quashing order could be adversely affected by the passage of time.

It is not known at this time if the CBA will initiate the action on its own. Mr Pannick suggested that the action would have a better chance for success if there were co-claimants, such as a group of concerned Caymanian citizens, and a group of long-term residents who have applied for Status through the Immigration Board.

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