The Tribune

By PAUL G TURNQUEST and KHRISNA VIRGIL

A SUPREME Court injunction will be filed this morning by attorney Wayne Munroe to block any move by the government from interfering with the operations of Island Games, Island Luck, Asue Draw, Whatfall.com and FML after Prime Minister Perry Christie ordered all webshop gaming operations closed last night with immediate effect.

Mr Munroe told The Tribune that despite the outcome of the gambling referendum, webshop gaming in the Bahamas is not illegal. He highlighted that the questions used in the referendum spoke specifically to regulation and taxation and not legalisation.

“The basis of what they do, is that webshops are not regulated by our laws at all. Basically as in other areas of law, technology and other methods of doing business have moved on, while the laws have stayed the same. They (webshops) are outside the jurisdiction of what the law maintains,” he said.

With the “No” vote that was registered on Monday against the taxation and regulation of webshops, Mr Munroe said the Bahamian people have only decided that they want this industry to remain “untaxed” – a privilege he said currently held by the church.

“This referendum has converted them to a church status where they are not to be taxed. The industry is still, by Bahamian law definitions, not illegal. That is the position that we have taken and that is the position that we will ask the court to declare. All sensible people agree that the court must rule on it. Just because someone jumps up and says it is illegal doesn’t make it so, even if you are the Prime Minister of the Bahamas.”

Mr Munroe’s application will be filed at 9am. He said his application will be made, bearing in mind that the question needs to be heard and determined by a court, up until which time the “status quo” must remain.

“In other words, these people have been operating in plain sight, with licenses by the central government. They say what they are doing is legal, so why should the court not preserve that position until they say what is what? So if they say ‘Yes, it is legal’, and they were closed for two or three months, then they would have to be paid their monies out of the Public Treasury.”

Mr Munroe said he has always had this position and is shocked that so many people who have not read the Lotteries and Gaming Act, have sought to suggest that what these men were doing was “illegal.”

“They seem to equate as what they see as immorality with illegality. They think gambling is immoral so they say it must be illegal. That is not how you operate. We are in a free country,” he said.

Up to around 6 o’clock last night, Mr Christie and his Cabinet remained tight-lipped as to if he would stick to prior declarations to enforce the law if Bahamians disagreed with legalising web shop gaming. Shortly after 6pm Mr Christie issued a press statement ordering web shops closed “with immediate effect.”

“In keeping with my Government’s commitment to abide by the will of the electorate as expressed on Monday’s referendum,” he said, “it has now become necessary to effect the closure of all web-shop gaming operations in The Bahamas.

“Accordingly, all offending web-shop owners and operators are placed on notice that all their gaming operations, including all online gaming and the numbers games, must cease with immediate effect. Failure to do so will leave all such web shop owners, operators and web shop gaming patrons exposed to arrest and criminal prosecution without further notice or warning.

“While web shop owners and operators must cease and desist from gaming operations immediately, they are not required to close the door on their employees and those persons with whom they have lawful commercial relationships. This includes relationships with landlords throughout the country, as well as relationships with utility and service companies, supplies of goods, and other third-party creditors.

“The Government expects that all web shop owners and operators will cooperate in giving effect to what I have just outlined so as to thereby eliminate the need for the relevant law enforcement authorities to take coercive action to compel the necessary result.”

While Mr Munroe’s action will be before the court, he urged webshop works to go about their business as usual as his injunction should keep everything “as it were.”

“We are going to be in court. What the court says is what is important. Not what the Prime Minister says,” Mr Munroe added.