In other news, Andrew Marshalleck, the Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the sale of government assets, insists that our newsroom make an important distinction and clarification to a story we aired last Friday on the lawsuits which Dean Barrow and Hugo Patt have brought.
As viewers are aware, both the former PM and the form Deputy PM have gone to the court to complain against the Commission's final report. They insist that the Commission violated their rights to natural justice when they published their report and its adverse findings without first allowing them - the claimants - the chance to convince the Commission that the Commission's conclusions were wrong.
We reported that Chairman Marshalleck has conceded that the Commission - by its terms of reference - was not allowed to utilize several pieces of evidence which helped to shape their conclusions about what happened to Hugo Patt's former Ministerial ride. Those include the police record of Juvencio Herrera and a report from the Lands Department. That was the view that Barrow strongly asserted to us last week, but Chairman Marshalleck says that the Commission didn't go that far. The Commission doesn't agree that these pieces of evidence were out of their reach and purview.
This weekend, the Commission Chairman told us via WhatsApp, quote, "It is not that Commission was not entitled to use the evidence. It is only that it was not entitled to make comments in [the] report without first offering the opportunity to comment. That is a big difference… The evidence was properly before the commission. It is the comment in the report that should not be made. There is no concession that evidence cannot be used, only that it could not be used in the manner it was."
This evening, we asked Barrow about that divergence of opinions, and he insists that those pieces of evidence were absolutely not available to the Commission for their consideration.
