MEDIA STATEMENT

       

The Parliament this morning, Monday March 11, 2013, heard a very thankful voice of protest, lasting about fifteen minutes, from the Parliamentary Representative of St. Peter’s Constituency, the Honourable Asot Michael. The thankful protest followed a Court-ordered Injunction, granted two hours earlier by a High Court Judge, in respect of the Constituencies Boundaries Report of this date in which St. Peter’s Constituency no longer exists.       

The High Court has prevented the Constituencies Boundaries Commission from delivering its Report to the Speaker of the House and onward to the Prime Minister, as may have been planned today. The temporary injunction also prevents the Speaker from delivering the Boundaries Commission Report to the Prime Minister, as required under the law; and, it prohibits the Prime Minister from delivering the same Report to the Governor General for her signature. A copy of the Court’s Order was served on the Speaker, the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, and the Chairman of the Boundaries Commission before Parliament convened.           

Next Monday, March 18, 2013, the High Court will hear arguments from the lawyers of both sides; the lawyers will argue that the attempt to eliminate the Constituency of St. Peter is unjustified. The Court will also hear arguments about the splitting of the St. John’s Rural East Constituency into two.

           

The Report of the Boundaries Commission was signed by all four Commissioners on Friday and post-dated. The Court has acted in part because, once the Report is laid on the table in Parliament, it can be dispatched to the Governor-General and would cause the 15 changed boundaries to prevail. No Court can intervene after the Governor-General signs the order.

           

The Honourable Asot Michael, the successful Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) candidate in the Parliament, today remarked that since 1951, with the coming of adult suffrage and the division of Antigua and Barbuda into 8 constituencies, the St. Peter Constituency has always existed. In 1951, Donald Sheppard was the ABLP candidate, and in 1971 Joseph Myers became the new candidate, followed by Langford Jeremy and then the Honourable Asot Michael in 2004. St. Peter’s has remained faithful to the ALP for more than 60 years. In 1971, 2004 and 2009, St. Peter’s returned the ALP Candidates to Parliament, when the majority of seats went to the PLM and the UPP, respectively.

“To erase St. Peter’s is to inflict a wrong, through gerrymandering, on the people of St. Peter’s and on Antigua and Barbuda,” the Representative asserted. “Since 2004, I have continuously contested in each General Election within Antigua and Barbuda and I have continuously and overwhelmingly been duly elected and returned as the Representative for St. Peter…In the general election of March 12, 2009, I won 63.10% of the vote cast, or 1588 of 2516 electors,” Mr. Michael concluded.

            The Honourable Asot Michael expressed surprise that the Boundaries Commission altered the names of the Constituency to eliminate St. Peter’s, since the draft report up until March 8, 2013, reflected a name change to the Constituency that would have eliminated St. Phillip’s North. He expressed the view that one Commissioner has shown hostility to him and that he was surprised that this Commissioner actually signed the Report, unanimously agreeing to the change.

The Honourable Asot Michael and his lawyers are working to refute the arguments that the Boundaries Commission will likely make, next Monday, before a judge of the High Court.