Malis­sa Lara

The halt­ing of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry is a na­tion­al dis­grace, says Diego Mar­tin MP, Kei­th Row­ley. "Ba­si­cal­ly, one thing that was said about Ude­cott was that it was a run­away horse, and now we have fur­ther proof," said Row­ley yes­ter­day. "It is noth­ing short of a scan­dal." He said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie had "giv­en his as­sur­ances," and now that he had been de­fied, his po­si­tion was now un­ten­able. "It is in­con­ceiv­able that a state en­ter­prise, with the pub­lic as its share­hold­ers, could de­fy the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al."

The MP said the con­sent that brought about this halt took place by lawyers act­ing out­side of the doors of the court. He said the coun­try should ask: "Where does Ude­cott get its pow­er from to de­fy the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Pres­i­dent? "This mat­ter now falls square­ly in the lap of Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who has been mak­ing a ca­reer of de­fend­ing Ude­cott."

Khan: The pub­lic needs an­swers. The pub­lic must be told why Ude­cott's lawyers and the com­mis­sion­ers' lawyers agreed to stay the pro­ceed­ings for three months. Khan felt that the lawyers must have had a good rea­son to agree. He said: "It is very un­for­tu­nate, and I am very dis­ap­point­ed, be­cause the com­mis­sion could have car­ried out their tasks while Ude­cott pur­sued their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, with their ju­di­cia­ry mat­ter re­gard­ing the al­le­ga­tions of bias against the com­mis­sion­ers."

Khan said if the court ruled in Ude­cott's favour, the re­port would be null and void, and they would not have suf­fered any prej­u­dice if the com­mis­sion had con­tin­ued their work. How­ev­er, Khan had no doubt in his mind that Ude­cott would lose that mat­ter in the court. He asked: "What about if Ude­cott and Calder Hart were to lose at the first in­stance judge, then lose at the Court of Ap­peal, then lose at the Privy Coun­cil?" He said that would take years.

"Any right-think­ing per­son must come to the con­clu­sion that the com­mis­sion of en­quiry must not stop." He said the re­port could be sub­mit­ted to the Pres­i­dent; the Pres­i­dent sub­mit it to the Prime Min­is­ter, and then they could hold it in abeyance un­til the fi­nal court pro­nounced on the mat­ter.