Court Of Appeal Blasts Bunting

THE Court of Appeal has chid­ed secu­ri­ty min­is­ter Peter Bunting for his depor­ta­tion of a Curaçao nation­al notwith­stand­ing a court order not to do so in April 2013.

The court also rapped the min­is­ter for “cas­ti­gat­ing” a mag­is­trate’s deci­sion to hear an appli­ca­tion on a Saturday from lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Shurendy Quant, whom he had labeled a drug kingpin.

The court last week described Bunting’s state­ment regard­ing the mag­is­trate as “unfor­tu­nate” and said the min­is­ter should have instead com­mend­ed the magistrate.

Retired Court of Appeal President Justice Seymour Panton, in the rul­ing, said he was “sur­prised” that the min­is­ter “does not know that a res­i­dent mag­is­trate may prop­er­ly sit and dis­pose of mat­ters on days oth­er than those that have been gazetted”.

The court also slammed Bunting for claim­ing igno­rance of an order by the Supreme Court bar­ring Quant’s deportation.

“In light of the inte­gral func­tion the min­is­ter plays in the depor­ta­tion of an alien, the asser­tion that he was igno­rant of the court’s order stay­ing his order is curi­ous. It is cer­tain­ly odd, in light of the cru­cial role he plays or ought to play in a depor­ta­tion, that he did­n’t acquaint him­self with the out­come of the pro­ceed­ings,” the court noted.

Bunting had signed an order on Friday, April 5, 2013 for the depor­ta­tion of Quant, after a taxi in which he was trav­el­ling in St Ann was found to con­tain gan­ja that the dri­ver of the vehi­cle sub­se­quent­ly claimed.

Quant was not charged but was tak­en to the Narcotics Division in Kingston where his attor­ney Chukwuemeka Cameron inquired about his release to no avail.

His attor­ney applied for a writ of habeas cor­pus before the mag­is­trate on Saturday, April 6, 2013.

The mag­is­trate then adjourned the mat­ter to the Monday after lit­tle infor­ma­tion was forth­com­ing when she inquired from the police offi­cer present the rea­son for Quant’s detention.

At the adjourned hear­ing, a Detective Inspector Johnson pre­sent­ed the court with two orders signed by Bunting for Quant’s depor­ta­tion. This was the first time the appel­lant was made aware of the depor­ta­tion orders.

The offi­cer informed the court that there was no nar­cotics inves­ti­ga­tion against Quant.

The mag­is­trate then adjourned the mat­ter for April 11, 2013, dur­ing which time Quant’s legal team filed in the Supreme Court a habeas cor­pus appli­ca­tion and an appli­ca­tion for judi­cial review of the min­is­ter’s depor­ta­tion order.

Quant’s legal team also obtained an inter­im order stay­ing Bunting’s order of depor­ta­tion. However, Quant was deport­ed on April 11, 2013, a day before his chal­lenge of Bunting’s order was sched­uled for hear­ing in the Supreme Court.

On that same day, Bunting told a pub­lic lec­ture at the University of the West Indies regard­ing Quant that, “There was a clear nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­est here, an alleged nar­cot­ic king­pin, want­ed inter­na­tion­al­ly… Interpol arrest warrant.”

He called the Saturday sit­ting of the court to hear Quant’s mat­ter “very unusu­al, high­ly puz­zling” and added that “it was very strange to the police offi­cers as well”.

Prior to that, Quant was nev­er informed that he was viewed as a nar­cot­ic king­pin and that there was an Interpol war­rant for him, nor was he giv­en a rea­son for his deportation.

Following his depor­ta­tion, Quant filed con­tempt of court action in the Supreme Court against Bunting, among oth­er things. But the court ordered that Quant deposit a mil­lion dol­lars in an account to cov­er Bunting’s legal cost should he fail in his court action.

He suc­cess­ful­ly appealed the Supreme Court rul­ing, with the Court of Appeal deliv­er­ing its deci­sion last week that Quant does not have to deposit the one mil­lion dollars.

It’s in that deci­sion that the appel­late court blast­ed the minister.

The court said that Bunting’s com­ments, if he was prop­er­ly quot­ed, lend cre­dence to Quant’s alle­ga­tion that the min­is­ter’s pro­nounce­ments tend­ed to and/​or were cal­cu­lat­ed to inter­fere with the admin­is­tra­tion and/​or course of justice.

“His state­ment inveigh­ing against the mag­is­trate for her indus­try is unfor­tu­nate. The ratio­nale for a mag­is­trate or judge mak­ing himself/​herself avail­able at any time of day or night is to pre­vent an irre­versible wrong occur­ring, such as unlaw­ful depor­ta­tion,” the court said.

“There was noth­ing sin­is­ter about the judge sit­ting on a Saturday after­noon to hear an appli­ca­tion for a habeas cor­pus writ. It was her duty to sit and she ought to have been com­mend­ed rather than cas­ti­gat­ed and have asper­sions pub­licly cast on her char­ac­ter,” the court added. Read more here : Court of Appeal blasts Bunting