Attorney General Alfred Sears introduced a resolution in the House of Assembly yesterday to allow disgraced MP Sydney Stubbs a six month extension to have his bankruptcy order revoked.
The resolution is to be “debated” today.
Sears, who is constantly under fire for his own incompetence as Attorney General, appears to be bending the rules, or splitting hairs with the law, in an effort to keep the bankrupt MP in the House.
Allegedly corrupt judge, Jeanne Thompson, whose previous decisions have set off alarm bells concerning her integrity, has again stunned court watchers by adjourning Stubb’s case until the end of November. Normally, this would forbid a debate in the House on the subject, as it is a matter that currently appears before the courts. This is a typical ploy, often used by corrupt judges and lawyers, to silence the media in sensitive matters. Bahamian law forbids the reporting of matters that are “in front of the courts”.
In this case, however, Attorney General Sears, the highest ranking legal officer in the country, is playing with semantics, saying that House members will only debate the “constitutional” aspects of the Stubb’s case, not the private law issue, which he concedes cannot be debated because it is a matter before the courts.
This slick legal maneuver gives Stubb’s PLP Parliamentary cronies the opportunity to silence the media, yet also pass a resolution allowing Stubbs to stay in Parliament until the court matter is heard. It also makes a mockery, once again, of our judicial system, our Parliamentary procedure and the rule of law.
