The lawyers representing Curtis Dickinson and the PLP in a legal tussle over membership rules have delivered their arguments. Now we wait for Justice Shade Subair Williams to deliver a judgement…
It was the last day in court for the PLP membership trial – but we’ll still have to wait for the final judgement.
On Friday, the PLP’s defence lawyer Mark Pettingill argued that bulk membership payments, made on behalf of applicants by the Curtis Dickinson campaign, must be individually verified by the party before each one is counted.
Today, Mr Dickinson’s lawyer Delroy Duncan supplied a list that the campaign had made which connected some of the bulk payments to individual name and constituencies.
Mr Pettingill suggested this only shows that the campaign made a list of those potential members, but does not verify that those individuals approved their applications and payments.
The defence also stated that the list only covered one of the five bulk payments, to which Mr Duncan responded that the total list could be supplied.
The court case was brought by Curtis Dickinson in response to the Central Committee voting to pass membership amendments which would impact new PLP members, or members who recently campaigned for other parties.
One of those amendments would have made brand new members ineligible to become delegates who can vote directly during the upcoming leadership election at the delayed Annual Delegates Conference.
Those amendments are currently restrained by the court, and the PLP has conceded to the plaintiff’s position that they were not passed in line with the party’s constitution.
In court today, Mr Duncan argued that the PLP’s constitution does not make membership dependant on the payment of a membership fee – only that the subscription must be paid in order to be a voting member.
He also questioned whether a verification process outside of the normal membership process is being used to exclude certain applicants.
He implied that his client has been the specific target of the amendments, saying “I suppose its just a coincidence that it coincides with Mr Dickinson bringing in a large number of applicants”…
He also said that there was no membership verification process in the PLP constitution, although Justice Shade Subair Williams asked if such a process is not implicit.
Mr Duncan argued that such an important process should either be in the constitution, or the constitution should contain a clear delegation of authority for such a process.
Justice Subair Williams has reserved her judgement on the case, so we await the final outcome.
