Derek Achong

A Pan Trin­ba­go del­e­gate for a steel or­ches­tra in St James has threat­ened to sue the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee over a de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly post­pone its tri­en­ni­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions due to the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore yes­ter­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Fuad Abu Bakr, of West­ern Stars Phil­har­mon­ic Steel Or­ches­tra, chal­lenged the com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion to post­pone the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s 2021 Con­ven­tion and An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in which the elec­tion was due to take place.

In the let­ter, Abu Bakr’s lawyer Devvon Williams not­ed that un­der the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion such a con­ven­tion is man­dat­ed to be held be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1 and Oc­to­ber 31, every three years.

The last con­ven­tion, in which Ram­sey-Moore and her fel­low com­mit­tee mem­bers were elect­ed, was held in 2018.

Williams not­ed that his client was con­cerned as such a post­pone­ment, with­out a fixed date, means that the com­mit­tee would con­tin­ue to func­tion in­def­i­nite­ly.

“While it is not­ed that the Com­mit­tee as present­ly con­sti­tut­ed did not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tru­ly ex­plore its true po­ten­tial due to the pan­dem­ic, this can­not be used as any rea­son­able jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to sup­port the Com­mit­tee’s de­sire to con­tin­ue to act in its present ca­pac­i­ty to a date un­known to the mem­ber­ship,” Williams said.

Williams not­ed that when the de­ci­sion was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mem­ber­ship on Sep­tem­ber 20, the com­mit­tee claimed that it had the en­dorse­ment of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers.

“How­ev­er, our client in­structs that in re­la­tion to this “sup­port” that the bands that have giv­en signed en­dorse­ments, have been hand-picked by the com­mit­tee and does not rep­re­sent the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­ber­ship as sug­gest­ed by you,” Williams said, as he not­ed that the sig­na­tures were on­ly ob­tained af­ter the de­ci­sion was made.

He al­so ques­tioned the com­mit­tee’s claim that the de­ci­sion was al­so based on dis­cus­sions with Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh.

“It would stand to rea­son that if the com­mit­tee had any di­rec­tive from the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Health speak­ing to that ef­fect, that it would have been dis­closed to the mem­ber­ship,” Williams said.

He chal­lenged the com­mit­tee’s claim that it de­cid­ed against a vir­tu­al meet­ing due to the ad­vanced age of many mem­bers.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that the com­mit­tee has tak­en such a po­si­tion with­out first seek­ing a con­sen­sus of the mem­ber­ship to de­fin­i­tive­ly de­ter­mine that such an op­tion is tru­ly un­ten­able, im­prac­ti­cal and non-vi­able for the pur­posed in­tend­ed,” Williams said, as he sug­gest­ed that the lack of a con­ven­tion and elec­tions con­sti­tut­ed a breach of con­tract be­tween the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its mem­ber­ship.

As part of the let­ter, Williams sought the dis­clo­sure of the cor­re­spon­dence with the Health Min­is­ter, the min­utes of the com­mit­tee’s meet­ing in which the de­ci­sion was tak­en and ev­i­dence of in­put from the mem­ber­ship.

Williams gave the com­mit­tee time to con­sid­er the let­ter and re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion be­fore he files a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the is­sue.

Abu Bakr is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kel­ston Pope and Ajesh Sumes­sar.