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Bar Association Still Not Satisfied
posted (August 25, 2011)
On Monday the Churches agreed to support the Ninth Amendment on the condition that certain changes would be made to the language of the proposed amendment.

Well, the Opposition and now the Bar Association have made it official: "they shall not be moved." The Bar's release was issued today and it applauds the churches for getting the government to quote, "delete two of the three offensive provisions from the bill" and called that a major step in the right direction.

But, it's not enough, says the bar. It argues that the amendment still makes it so that the Legislature can pass any amendment to the constitution. So the bar wants Government to quote "refrain from amending section 2 and section 69 of the constitution until a definitive interpretation…by the Caribbean Court of Justice."

And while the Bar is asking the government to hold off, the Ashcroft Alliance's BTL Employees Trust is courting the Council of Churches and the Association of Evangelical Churches.

This is after the Trust's attorney Godfrey Smith yesterday wrote an online column saying that if God was the churches' counsel (in its negations with government) he had failed them miserably.

But Smith didn't sign today's letter; the dense, two page document was signed by the Trustees Dean Boyce and Keith Arnold. It calls the Church's efforts "remarkable" in quote, "having much of the offensive language of the bill removed." The letter goes on to ask the churches to hear from the trust before they take any final position on the revised bill. It argues that the ninth amendment seeks to legislate victory for the government in a case that is before the courts and presses the churches to question government about compensation.

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