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Again, it’s an effort to try and get the referendum underway by any and all legal means.  And whIle that is happening between the executive and the legislature,, the judiciary was also tied up with the matter today.

Last night, we told you that the Government was seeking an expedited hearing in front the Court of Appeal. The Barrow Administration is racing against the clock to get the Supreme Court injunction lifted, so that it can still hold the ICJ referendum next week.

On Wednesday, Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin granted the PUP an injunction stopping  the government from holding the referendum. Prime Minister Barrow has insisted that far too much, time, energy and finances have been invested for the PUP to be able to swoop in last minute and shut it down with a postponement.

So, GOB’s attorneys came up with 2 options to get around it. The first was to go back in front of Chief Justice Benjamin and convince him to amend the injunction order, so that voters could still go to the polls. 

In this scenario, the results wouldn’t be certified by the Chief Elections Officer, and she would delay to do so until after the PUP’s lawsuit against the 2008 Special Agreement was heard and disposed of.

But, the option they have decided upon instead is to go straight to the Court of Appeal to try and convince those judges to reverse the Chief Justice’s ruling, and lift the injunction. The panel of judges called attorneys for both the Government and the PUP claimants for a case management conference - which started this afternoon at 3:00. 

Since case management conferences are private, the press wasn’t allowed to sit in and listen.

When it was finished about 2 hours later, we spoke with Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte about how the Court of Appeal has decided to address this appeal. He told us that the Court was ready, but the PUP is attempting to stall:

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte - Attorney General
"We came to court, the court of appeal made it very clear to everybody that they are prepared and ready to proceed to hear the matter now if they had to. They were fully prepared to hear everybody on the matter. Naturally, they asked us what was our position, they even suggested to us that we could skip them and go to the CCJ we wanted but we said we wanted to hear the matter right here, right now and we were prepared for that; the court of appeal was prepared for that. When the court asked the PUP if they're prepared to proceed with it, they PUP refused to give any indication that they are amendable to it or not amendable to it. When we ask the PUP, are you prepared to proceed on this matter, they said all we will do is watch what the court does and they reserve all rights as they usually do and have. At that point, the court recessed to give them a chance to think about it. When we came back this afternoon, we repeated our position and the government is prepared to proceed right now if we have to. The PUP once again said that the court will have to do what it has to do and they reserve their rights. So the court decided listen - we will give the PUP until 6 o'clock tomorrow afternoon to file skeleton arguments with any objections that they may have and we after that proceed to a hearing on Monday; to hear both the notice of motion for expedited hearing and the notice of the appeal right away. So Monday everything is set for, a little bit of time will be given because there's another matter in the Supreme Court but the court of appeal has decided that they will hear the matter and they will hear the matter Monday after pleadings have been filled tomorrow 6 o'clock."

Daniel Ortiz
"Do you think that's strategy from the PUP to delay?"

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"The People's United Party does not want this matter to be heard and determined by the court of appeal. All they're doing right now is delay, delay, delay, in the hope that the clock will run out before April 10. If you're so confident in your case and you're so confident about your position, then why not hear the matter now? But they refuse to hear the matter now, they even refuse to acknowledge that they would be willing to hear the matter now. The court of appeal offered to sit down tomorrow if the parties were prepared, today if the parties were prepared. By law the only day they can't sit down in Sunday but they were prepared to sit down any time we wished; provided that the two sides could agree. We were prepared to sit down right now, today, this morning."

Reporter
"So the court of appeal indicated they would be handing down a ruling on the same day or the next day?"

Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"That's up to them but the court of appeal certainly appreciates the urgency of the matter and I am confident that once we get through all the arguments on Monday, they will make a decision one way or the other."