welcome back to prime time news and a special welcome once again to our viewers
on onespotmedia.com up first this evening the privy council dismissed the appeal
by the people's national party in the trafigura case to have the matter held behind closed doors
in its ruling handed down on Monday the UK-based privy council said the matter should be held in
open court to which members of the public have access along with the media the traffic group
baher case has been in the courts for more than a decade Oshane Masters has our report
denied that sums up the appeal which was made by the five appellants in the traffic urabi here case
to the UK-based private council last month the appellants Former Prime Minister Portia
Simpson-Miller and former cabinet ministers Phillip Paulwell and Robert Pickersgill
as well as Colin Campbell and businessman Norton Hines made it their submission following the
court of appeal in Jamaica denying their initial request to have the matter being heard in private
in its ruling the private council said the nature of the matter under investigation
is one which is capable of affecting the quality of the country this is highly relevant to whether
the evidence should be taken in public and was not a matter given undue weight
it noted that there was no material evidence before the court to lead to the conclusion
that a public hearing might jeopardize the investigation in the Netherlands
or any subsequent investigation or proceedings which might follow in Jamaica director of public
porter lewin says she was not surprised at the ruling by the perfect council it was foreshadowed
in the particular submission that the name and my representative was sandra martin's theory in
the court of appeals if you look at the question you will see that a lot of the issues were already
transferred there we had done all research at that level and we did believe as a matter of law
that the appearance did not have been able to promote a successful appeal in relation to
the grounds that they have felt and if you look at the judgment of the private council it not only
affirm the court of appeals judgment but it also very importantly i think vindicates
the orders that had been made the scandal was brought to the foreign October 2006
by then opposition leader Bruce Golding the case hinges on the pnp accepting 35 million dollars
from dutch firm traffic here which traded nigerian oil on the country's behalf
under dutch laws it is illegal for dutch companies to provide funding to political parties
the national public prosecutor's office of the netherlands has been trying to get information on
the matter since 2007. however to date there has not been any information forthcoming from the pnp
the matter went to the supreme court on november 15 2011 the court held that the
proper administration of justice demanded a hearing in open court as to the next step
dpp loyalin says her office will be seeking to have the matter heard at the next available
court date as far as our records indicates have an active request that has not yet been
fully discharged and completed so we will be writing to the registrar of the supreme court
in order for an appropriate date the phone in the court's calendar to facilitate
the hearing of the matter and i'd also like to say that it would then be for the court to be
issued registration ratios among the appellants for them to accept machine masters tv 10 news