ATTORNEY General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall said he empathises with the expression of desperation exhibited by the Opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) in taking credit for government’s withdrawal of a High Court challenge of the no confidence motion the National Assembly passed against Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee in July.

Nandlall roasted APNU in a terse response he issued late yesterday, in which he stated: “As it relates to my withdrawal of a court proceeding filed challenging the no confidence motion passed by the opposition in the National Assembly is simply pathetic. As I stated earlier, I withdrew the first proceeding filed because it was overtaken by events which transpired in the National Assembly on November 22, 2012, which resulted in a second proceeding filed. The second legal challenge subsumed the first, both in terms of legal issues, events and time. It is a most rudimentary principle of procedural law that you cannot have a multiplicity of legal proceedings pending in the court system on the same issue, especially since the subsequent proceedings overtake and encompass the first. Anyone who has a mere fleeting acquaintance with the practise of law would appreciate this elementary concept. Unfortunately, these basic legal principles are lost upon the legal advisors of the APNU. To take credit for the withdrawal of the first legal challenge by the government, and completely ignoring the fact that this legal challenge has been overtaken by the second proceeding filed, is at its worse, an expression of desperation, and at its best, comical. I empathise with them on both interpretations.” Nandlall on Monday had filed a Notice of Withdrawal and Discontinuance in the matter filed against Opposition Leader David Granger and Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman. When the matter came up before Chief Justice on Wednesday the court awarded costs to Granger's lawyers in the sum of $75,000.00 dollars each. At a news briefing yesterday, APNU executive Basil Williams noted that on October 30 they had filed a summons to strike out the first challenge on the grounds that the court could not interfer in the procedures of the Assembly. “APNU’s Shadow Minister for Legal Affairs, Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Basil Williams, MP, sees the discontinuance of the Motion, by the AG as a vindication of the position of APNU, that the Court has no jurisdiction in the internal affairs of the National Assembly, even if irregular, unless a constitutional breach was occasioned. The AG’s withdrawal of his action must be taken as a concession, that there was no constitutional breach, when the National Assembly passed the Motion of No Confidence, by Brigadier Granger, in Minister Clement Rohee,” Williams read from a prepared statement.