Today Winston Smiling and Gulab Sharma won round one of their courtroom battle to overturn the July 10th election in the Corozal Free Zone. This morning Justice Samuel Awich ruled on preliminary arguments which had been submitted by Lois Young, attorney for the Corozal Free Zone and the Ministry of National Development on Thursday.
Young asked Justice Awich to remove Sharma's name from the application for judicial review because he wasn't affected by the elections. She also said the applicants' basis for challenging the results of the election didn't apply to election of the Corozal Free Zone's Board of Directors. This morning Justice Awich ruled that Gulab Sharma has sufficient interest in the matter. He also ruled that the admissibility or in-admissibility of the statutory instrument will be decided during the hearing for the leave to seek juridical review.
Those were of course only preliminary objections. The actual case for a leave to seek judicial began late this morning. Fred Lumor is representing Winston Smiling and Gulab Sharma, while Lois Young is representing the Ministry of National Development and the Corozal Free Zone.
