Barbara Gayle Staff ReporterA SUPREME Court Judge ruled yesterday that Senior Puisne Judge Mr. Justice Ellis, who is the sole commissioner into the prison disturbance in May this year, had no legal authority to bar the lobby group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) from taking notes at the inquiry.
"The exercise of his power is repugnant to the general law," the judge said when she upheld submissions by lawyers representing the applicants that such a ruling was "discriminatory".
Mr. Justice Ellis said in his affidavit that he had ruled on June 14 that no verbatim notes should be taken except by the press and attorneys-at-law. The inquiry began on June 12.
Members of JFJ and a member of a Rastafarian group whose notes were taken away by policemen after the commissioner made the order, took the matter to court seeking a declaration that the commissioner had no power to make the ruling.
Mrs. Justice Hazel Harris heard the motion last week and handed down her decision yesterday in favour of the applicants.
The judge, in making her decision, had to interpret the Commissions of Inquiry Act and after doing so she found the commissioner had no power under the Act to make such a ruling.
In commenting on the commissioner's affidavit, Mrs. Justice Harris said it was asserted by the commissioner that his ruling was with respect to the exclusion of verbatim notes. She said parliament could not have intended to have given him power which would have entitled him to rule verbatim notes should not be taken by the applicants.
"This points to uncertainty. Any such rule must be rendered void for uncertainty," the judge held.
"The statute does not authorise the commissioner to discriminate. The exercise of his power is repugnant to the general law. It could never have been in the contemplation of Parliament to empower the commissioner to make rules which are unjust, impartial, unfair, unreasonable or uncertain," the Judge ruled.
Attorneys-at-law Hugh Small, Q.C., Dennis Goffe, Q.C. and Sharon Usim who represented Dr. Carolyn Gomes and Susan Goffe, directors of JFJ and Madge Hylton whose notes were taken away, had argued that under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, the commissioner had no legal authority to place a ban on verbatim notes or notes of any sort. They argued the commissioner's ruling was in breach of the constitution and was a fetter on the right of every member of the public. They said the press had no greater right at a public inquiry than ordinary members of the public.
Attorney-at-law Evan Oniss, who represented the Attorney-General who was the respondent, argued the commissioner had referred specifically to verbatim notes and was not saying persons should not take notes.
