The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader yesterday slammed the Christie administration as a “know nothing government”, after Cabinet ministers said they were all unaware the Attorney General had ordered an end to the Sandals criminal prosecution.

Branville McCartney told Tribune Business he found it “hard to believe” assertions by Shane Gibson, minister of labour and national insurance, that he was unaware his Cabinet colleague had issued a ‘nolle prosequi’ on the same day the resort chain terminated 600 workers.

But other Cabinet ministers, including Obie Wilchcombe, minister of tourism, and Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis, yesterday said they, too, had been unaware of Allyson Maynard-Gibson’s action until this week.

Mr Gibson also dragged the Prime Minister into the situation, disclosing a conversation in which Mr Christie told him he, too, was unaware of the Attorney General’s order to the magistrate’s court to discontinue the criminal prosecution of Sandals Royal Bahamian and its two senior executives.

Yet Mr McCartney yesterday pointed out that Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) chairman Bradley Roberts, who was not a Cabinet member, appeared to be better informed than the ministers about the Sandals situation - even to the extent of explaining the reasons for Mrs Maynard-Gibson’s actions.

“That’s very hard to believe,” the DNA leader told Tribune Business of Mr Gibson’s professed ignorance, and that of other Cabinet ministers.

“And if indeed this is the case, that tells you the type of government that’s running the country. But for the Attorney General to act on her own accord in such a manner, that’s very hard to believe.

“Perhaps we can ask her that, and if she did it without the knowledge of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet,” Mr McCartney continued.

“The chairman of the governing party not only indicated he supported her actions, but explained why she did it. For Shane Gibson to say he didn’t know, and to bring the Prime Minister into it, that’s highly unlikely.

“The Attorney General has some answering to do. You have a situation where she issued a nolle on the same day those persons were terminated, and your telling me she knew nothing about it. I find that amazing. The Government doesn’t know anything about anything. It’s a know nothing government.”

Mr McCartney, an attorney by profession, acknowledged that Mrs Maynard-Gibson possessed the power and valid legal reasons to act as she did.

Wayne Munroe QC, the attorney representing Sandals Royal Bahamian in the criminal prosecution brought against it by the six union officers, explained that the matter was effectively litigating the same issues as those raised in a pre-existing civil dispute between the parties, which was already before the Supreme Court.

Previous rulings, he added, had established the legal precedent “that you cannot try in a lower court an issue that is presently before a higher court”.

Mr Roberts provided a blunter explanation, namely that “it was an abuse of the judicial process to have the matter simultaneously litigated in the criminal courts”.

But while the Attorney General may have acted for valid legal reasons, the manner in which the ‘nolle prosequi’ was handled and disclosed has only served to further inflame the Sandals situation - and industrial relations (union-government) in the Bahamas generally.

The Bahamas Hotel, Maintenance and Allied Workers Union (BHMAWU), whose members were among those terminated by Sandals, and other trade unions have been negotiating with the Government for five-six weeks since that development to resolve both this and other labour-related disputes.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson attended several of these meetings, yet the ‘nolle prosequi’s’ signing and existence was never disclosed, resulting in the unions believing that the have been both betrayed and deceived.

This threatens to undermine both trust in the Christie administration and harmonious workplace relations, with the unions now hinting at widespread industrial actions.

Given the ignorance professed by several Cabinet ministers about the ‘nolle prosequi’, Mr McCartney told Tribune Business: “It’s a government we should be very, very concerned about.

“These are the people who have been in charge of our country for four-and-a-half years, and they seem to not know what each other is doing. That’s very scary. This is a significant event in this country, and the Prime Minister said he knew nothing about it.”

The DNA leader said the ‘nolle prosequi’ seemed to have exposed a bizarre situation at the heart of the Christie government, where the ‘left arm did not know what the right arm’ was doing.

Such a scenario, he added, had previously played out with the Renward Wells’ Letter of Intent (LOI) saga, when a variety of Cabinet ministers professed to know nothing about the document, only for Tribune Business to reveal otherwise.

Mr McCartney added that this was also the second time that Mrs Maynard-Gibson had been ‘off-island’ when a controversial ‘nolle prosequi’ was issued, with the Sandals episode - and ministerial denials - raising questions about the convention of ‘collective responsibility’.

Under the Westminster system of governance that the Bahamas has, all ministers share in the responsibility for government actions and Cabinet-level decisions.

Yet Mr McCartney suggested yesterday that Mr Gibson was not adhering to this by seeking to distance himself, and back away from, the ‘nolle prosequi’.

“It seems as if it’s [collective responsibility] not working there,” he added. “You have Cabinet ministers saying different things, and you have the Minister of Labour saying obviously he doesn’t know, so he’s trying to work himself back out of it.

“But the bottom line is anything done by a Cabinet minister, everyone’s responsible for it, so he can’t get away from it.”

Mr McCartney suggested that, as a former trade union leader, and the Cabinet minister responsible for labour relations, Mr Gibson had extra reason to distance himself from the order to discontinue the Sandals prosecution.

Based on the explanation from Mr Munroe, it appears that the ‘nolle prosequi’ was only flushed into the open by the Judicial Review application launched by Sandals Royal Bahamian.

Mr Munroe said the resort launched this action in the Supreme Court to challenge the process employed by the union in initiating the criminal prosecution.

The matter was due to be heard by Justice Ian Winder on Wednesday and, had he given permission for the Judicial Review to proceed, Sandals would have been taking on both the union officers and the magistrate.

“We cried to the Attorney General that they need to look at this or we would sue them - sue them in terms of bringing a case against the magistrate and the complainant to have the proceedings quashed,” Mr Munroe said.

With the Judicial Review hearing looming, and the Government facing the possibility of damage and cost payouts, the Government finally issued the ‘nolle prosequi’ to the magistrate’s court.