Hamilton has no allegiance or adherence to the United States says prominent immigration lawyer The Labour Government’s expert witness in the election petition case brought along with Cedric Liburd against Hon. Eugene Hamilton was a “NO-SHOW” at the hearings on Friday. The Attorney General's expert witness, Ted Chiappari, was scheduled to give evidence supporting the government’s claim that Hon. Eugene Ha...

In a captivating and robust presentation in the High Court on Thursday 22nd, Counsel Mr. Terence Byron made a most powerful appeal to Judge Hariprashad-Charles as to why we deserve a day in Court to allow our Election Petition against the Labour Party and Glenn Phillip to be heard at a trial on its merits. He asserted that it was clear during the oral submissions of Dr. Henry Browne and Anthony Astaphan, S.C., that they failed to point to any relevant law to support their Application to strike out the Petition. For, while Mr. Astaphan referred to laws from Dominica and elsewhere, he could not make any link to the laws of St. Kitts and Nevis such as the National Assembly Elections Act which differ tremendously. Also while Dr. Browne spoke eloquently, he could not cite even one case to substantiate all his arguments. The Constitution stipulates that you vote only in the Constituency in which you reside. Votes which were cast by people who do not live in Old Road were therefore not good and valid votes. This is a Constitutional imperative and the Constitution is supreme. Any Government policy or Act of Parliament which gives people the right to vote where they do not live is unconstitutional and a perversion of justice. Lawyer Byron then pointed to the SR&O 18 of 2006 which purported to establish the Labour Government's electoral reform policy. This SR&O was already declared "unconstitutional, null and void" by Judge Errol Thomas in the Constituency Boundaries cases last year in which the Attorney General was found in contempt of court. Byron declared that he therefore made no apology in calling the Government's policy perverse and illegal.

“Cedric Liburd and the Labour Party should be made to foot the bill for this frivolous challenge rather than the taxpayers of this country,” I must express concern and outrage over the Attorney General’s intervention in the Election Petition case brought by former Labour MP Cedric Liburd against the Hon. Eugene Hamilton. Why would the government intervene in what is obviously a case with little or no merit on ...

St. Kitts-Nevis former national striker and local football legend Kieth ‘Kayamba” Gumbs has lead his Sriwijaya FC to another Indonesia Cup final. Gumbs’ Sriwaijaya FC , the defending Indonesian Cup champion beat Persipura Jayapura 3-1 in a penalty shootout, on Tuesday night to advan...

The youth of Suriname and indeed of the Caribbean must be tying themselves in knots trying to decide what a genuine Caribbean leader should look like or which Caribbean leader they should emulate. The future of the Caribbean will depend on what the present leaders of the Caribbean community hold up to them as ‘legal’, ‘democratic’ or acceptable. About to be seated at the round table of CARICOM leaders is a man who has been convicted of cocaine trafficking; who has not once but twice seized power by military coup; who has been accused and is facing charges of killing 15 of his political opponents and jailing many others; who has refused to attend his trials to answer charges; and who has been condemned by human rights organisations. Journalists have described him euphemistically as having a ‘sensational’ or ‘tense’ past while writers to the newspapers have described him as a being an ‘outright thug’. One writer states, “The CARICOM is free to determine if Bouterse fits into their organization, given his deeds and history.”

The offshore financial sector has been for the past two decades a stead and significant source of income for this Federation. For certain, St. Kitts and Nevis are not in the league with the Turks and Caicos Islands or the Cayman Islands which have tens of thousands of companies registered in their jurisdiction but the local sector could still hold its own in the Caribbean region. These islands have worked hard to build up a reputation in the international financial world for above the board, efficient, confidential and secure administration of a variety of financial, trust and insurance business for clients from the Europe and North America. Unlike the much talked about tourism which despite all the marketing and investment could only deliver a 6% return to our national economy – largely because like in the case of the Marriott nearly all the profits are repatriated out of the Federation – the financial services sector delivers government revenue significantly above its portion of the economy. The benefits reaped from financial services even despite external shocks like blacklisting by the OECD and the current crisis in international credit markets have been the result of national ownership of this vital sector.