ARA MACAO DEVELOPMENT AGAINST MARY TOY CASE SENT BACK TO THE SUPREME COURT
Mar 17, 2009
A case lodged before the Justices of the Court of Appeal has been sent back to the Supreme Court for trial. This morning Justices Mottley, Carey and Morrison found that the claim of Paul Goguen and the Ara Macao Development against Mary Toy and the Placencia Citizens Development Group should be retried on the basis that there was a procedural error made by the Chief Justice. In May 2008, the CJ had found that there were no defamatory words in two articles published online by Mary Toy. However, Ara Macao's attorney Elson Kaseke pointed out to the Court of Appeal that in the preliminary stage of that trial, both sides had asked the Court to determine the meaning of the meaning of the words complained of under rule 68 of the Supreme Court. That is, "are the words capable of being interpreted as defamatory by the ordinary man?" Therefore because rule 68 did not form part of the CJ's ruling, the Justices have allowed Ara Macao's appeal. Ara Macao had initially complained of six excerpts from the two articles but they have since abandoned four of them. Therefore the CJ's finding stands of those paragraphs but the Court of Appeal have allowed the appeal in part so that Ara Macao can take the two other quotations as grounds of a new claim to be heard in the Supreme Court. No costs were awarded and the Justices' written reasons for the decision will be released at a later date.
Story at
http://www.lovefm.com/ndisplay.php?nid=9735