Kay Bacchus-Browne calls for recall of DPP Colin Williams

The President of the Bar Association Kay Bacchus-Browne has said it is time to call for the recall of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Colin Williams.{{more}}

The call was made in an email circulated to 44 lawyers and law firms and one other professional on Thursday, February 3, and signed Kay, Kay Bacchus-Browne Chambers.

The email also called on all lawyers to speak out and be heard on the recent amendment to the Code (Criminal Procedure Code) and the proposed abolition of Section 51 (3) and (4) of the RPA (Representation of the People Act).

“We cannot be afraid to speak out. There can be no justification to repeal Sec 51 (3) + (4) of the RPA except to save the accused parliamentarians who have been charged. Can we as lawyers remain silent? Are we mice or lions?”, the email said.

The email also disclosed that the private criminal charges which had been brought against Afi Jack in December 2010, had been discontinued by the DPP on February 3, the day before the case was scheduled to be heard in the Magistrate’s court.

Jack had been charged with unlawfully re-registering in the lead up to the December 13, 2010 general elections.

“I have the evidence for you to peruse if you wish. It is time to call for the DPP’s recall! Stand up and be counted all of you,” the email said.

However, DPP Williams has defended his action, and said on a call in programme on WE FM on Sunday, February 6, that his office conducted its own investigations, in addition to the statements provided to his office by Kay Bacchus Browne’s Chambers.

“We obtained statements, not just from Afi Jack, but from other persons, as well.”

He said based on their investigations, they discovered that there was no basis on which a charge against Jack could succeed.

The DPP also told SEARCHLIGHT that a statement obtained from the Supervisor of Elections said that no objection was made to her about Jack’s re-registration and that she authorized the transfer.

“The law is clear,” Williams told SEARCHLIGHT.

When asked why then, did he not allow the case to be decided on by the Magistrate if the law is clear, Williams said a person “ought not to be asked to go through a criminal trial when one knows there is no chance of a conviction.”

Referring to Bacchus-Browne’s statement to the lawyers that she has the evidence, Williams said: “What she has is statements to say certain things. But they do not have the whole picture, and this is what often happens when there is a partial enquiry of things, and one does not apply a probative approach to gathering the evidence.”

In relation to the calls for his removal, Williams questioned why the Bar Association has not called a meeting for the last two years.

“You know more than two years now, Kay Bacchus has remained as President of the Bar Association; her term of office has expired and no elections have been held and the lawyers can’t even get up and call for elections in the Bar Association of St. Vincent and the Grenadines? But I publicly have stood up and spoken about it. This is what grouses them; I am not beholden to any of them!”

Williams also said that since the last Bar Association election in 2008, no further elections have been held.

“Do we have a Bar Association then?” he quipped.

“Those are the things that they should be attending to. The recall should come, not of Colin Williams, because they can’t recall Colin Williams; I was not appointed by the lawyers.”