The government expects cost to be awarded to it by Cheryl Grant-Bethell, who recently lost her bid to have the court overturn a decision to overlook her as the deputy director of public prosecutions (DPP), according to Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
Supreme Court Senior Justice Jon Isaacs explained that no order was made returning Grant-Bethell to the post of deputy DPP, as the attorney general has the constitutional right to decide who prosecutes on his behalf and Grant-Bethell would likely be denied the right to practice before the criminal courts.
Ingraham when responding to the ruling on Saturday said he does not believe the media in general “fairly and accurately characterized the position of the court.”
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said, “At the end of the day the party who took the government or the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) to court said that they had been transferred to the Law Reform Commission and they should have remained as deputy director of public prosecutions, and should be made the director of public prosecutions, lost. And [she is] still exactly where [she was] when the case began as a deputy director of the Law Reform Commission. She’s still there, nothing’s changed.”
During the hearing, it was revealed that the JLSC was about to recommend that Grant-Bethell act as DPP for one year. However, that recommendation was withdrawn after the commission received an intelligence report that contained damaging allegations about Grant-Bethell from the Security Intelligence Branch (SIB) of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
The allegations were not disclosed during the judicial review.
