By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE SUPREME Court yesterday barred the newly-appointed Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Mayor of Port Antonio, Benny White, and his deputy, the People's National Party's Dexter Roland, from taking up their posts.
Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe granted a 14-day injunction after hearing an ex parte application in chambers brought by ousted Mayor Alston Hunter and his deputy, Rupert Kelly.
The injunction operates as a stay of the decision of the special meeting of the Council last Thursday, which removed them from office.
The claimants have 14 days in which to apply for leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to seek an order to quash the July 15 decision of the Portland Parish Council that ousted Hunter and Kelly and elected White and Roland.
They were removed from office after Hunter adjourned the special meeting called by the secretary/manager of the Parish Council, Franklin Smith, and then staged a walkout along with three other JLP councillors. Hunter had called for the meeting to be adjourned on the grounds that the Council's secretary/manager did not have the authority to call a special meeting. Hunter said that he was adjourning the meeting to seek the advice of the Attorney-General.
After the meeting was adjourned, the secretary/manager reconvened it and the JLP's White was appointed Mayor and chairman of the Portland Parish Council.
Hunter and Kelly are represented by attorney-at-law Arthur Williams, instructed by Harold Brady and Co. They are also contending that the notice convening last week's meeting failed to specify the business to be considered. It is their contention that the procedure adopted at the meeting lacked procedural propriety. Hunter and Kelly said they were personally affected by the decision in that they were duly elected to the posts and had been improperly removed from office in breach of the Parish Councils Act and Parish Council by-laws.
