Last week, we combed through two big judgments coming out of the Supreme Court involving legal sparring between the ruling PUP Government, and the Opposition UDP.
One of them was Prime Minister John Briceno and Minister Julius Espat suing Former Prime Minister Dean Barrow for unlawfully spending 1.3 Billion dollars in public funds without prior parliamentary approval. And on the flip side of that legal coin, UDP Senator Michael Peyrefitte and his attorney, Former PM Barrow, sued Briceno and his government for the contract that his new government Awarded to Smart/Speednet, a company that is partially owned by PM Briceno's family.
Although we gave you deep dive into both decisions, there are a number of important elements that still remain. We pick up the discourse tonight on the issue of spending public funds without getting the necessary parliamentary approval. As we told you, Briceno, Espat, and the PUP labored very hard to get that judgment against Barrow that he broke the law?
But, is he doing something that he complained of now that he is in government? You've heard the tough critics of his government's decision to take supplementary appropriation bill to the house to account for unplanned spending. This evening, we put that to his attorney, Andrew Marshalleck, and here's that back and forth:
Reporter
"The judgement that you are pursuing in this instance could very well be an indictment of the claimants, their supplementary appropriation bills continue to be challenge, so if it was wrong when John Briceno was opposition leader, its wrong now that he is prime minister and he should know better."
Andrew Marshalleck, Attorney
"The allegation of as to the wrong unlawful use for spending of monies continue and if we had a decision on it that clearly set the rules out as we thought we did, these things should have come to an end. Be that as it may, even in this case, if an appeal should go forward it would have to be by Julius Espat against John Briceno as minister of finance and that demonstrates in and of itself what I think you are trying to reach at in that government has changed and as the judge herself pointed out she hopes now that the rules would be followed."
Reporter
"They are not being followed, sir."
Andrew Marshalleck, Attorney
"I am not sure that hoping is enough and this is why the permanent injunction was sought, because if it was granted and the orders were settled, there would be certain civil sanctions, because it would be committal proceedings that could flow for private persons to compel its compliance for the claimants, the parties to compel its compliance. So what you say is true in that allegations persist and the issue is still relevant to society at large and we would have hoped that this matter was settled in a different way."
