Former Magistrate and Government Senator George Prime has rejected a $30, 000.00 offer from government to settle a potentially embarrassing situation facing the Judiciary following his incarceration in Prison in September for 2-nights for an alleged contempt of a Court Order.
A high-level legal source told THE NEW TODAY that the Dickon Mitchell-led government, through the Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Senator Claudette Joseph made the offer in response to a letter from one of Prime’s lawyers seeking compensation for his imprisonment.
Veteran attorney-at-law Anselm Clouden had written the letter on instruction from Prime who is threatening to take legal action against the State on a matter involving sitting high court judge Justice Agnes Actie and Registrar of the Supreme Court, Melissa Garraway-Nelson.
The source said that the government would like to settle the case and avoid a battle in court that can prove to be very embarrassing for the Judiciary.
He indicated that Prime is prepared to settle the matter for anything between $75, 000 and $100, 000.00 and not the paltry sum offered by the government.
“We wrote back telling them that’s insufficient ($30, 000.00). That’s too small – that’s no amount of money,” a source quoted one of the defense lawyers as saying.
“So they (government) wrote back saying $25 or $30, 000 – that’s too small – they ain’t ready yet,” he said.
The source went on to say: “So we wrote back telling them we find that unacceptable, we looking for about $75, 000 or thereabouts.”
According to the source, he saw a judgment a few days ago from neighbouring Trinidad & Tobago in which a lawyer was awarded $164, 000.00 “for something very similar) like Prime’s case.
Prime spent two nights at the Richmond Hill prison in September in connection with a Committal Order related to a Court Order to pay EC$92,000.00 from a failed land transaction.
The lawyer who brought the action against Prime in a matter dating back to 2012, is his fellow colleague from the sister isle of Carriacou, Nigel Stewart.
Senior Trinidad and Tobago attorney Keith Scotland and a retired judge of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) court circuit have presented different legal opinions to Prime urging him to challenge the decision taken to imprison him.
Justice Actie has denied signing any order to send Prime to prison and fingers are pointing in the direction of the Registrar of the High Court.
However, Prime and his attorneys have taken note that although Justice Actie has maintained that she did not sign the Committal Order but she was the one who signed the Order for his release from the prison.
Actie is said to be insisting that she is only aware of “a suspended Committal Order” against Prime who was supposed to do certain things in order to get it lifted.
The judge is maintaining that she never signed the order in which Police picked up Prime on the compound of the court and handed him over to the authorities at the Richmond Hill prison.
