ROSEAU, Dominica – Leader of the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) Lennox Linton has been ordered to pay chartered accountant Kieron Pinard Byrne £25 992.12 within seven days or face bankruptcy proceedings.
The notice, served on Wednesday, stated that the money must be paid with interest of five per cent per annum.
This stems from the final judgement obtained on April 27, 2017, “by the Creditor in the Privy Council Appeal No. 0064 of 2014, intituled Kieron Pinard Byrne v. Lennox Linton, whereon execution has not been stayed, or secure or compound for the said Judgement debt to the satisfaction of the Creditor or you must satisfy the Court that you have a counterclaim, set-off or cross demand against the Creditor which equals or exceeds the sum claimed and which you could not set up in the action or other proceedings in which the Judgment was obtained.”
The letter stated that if Linton does not comply with the notice within seven days “you will have committed an act of bankruptcy in respect of which bankruptcy proceedings may be taken against you”.
According to Pinard Byrne, to date – Linton has not sought the protection of the court from his creditors.
“His standing is therefore untenable and a disgrace to Dominica’s rule of law and the media profession’s ethical standards. It is an affront to any victim of character assassination in Dominica . . . it now follows, as night follows day, given Linton’s default modus operandi over the past 15 years that he be brought to account under the bankruptcy act of Dominica. In my 40 years as an Irish-Dominican, I have never witnessed Mr Linton’s observance of the golden rule . . . .” Pinard Byrne said.
The Privy Council, which had served as Dominica’s highest court prior to the island joining the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), had in October 2015, upheld a motion by Pinard-Byrne that he had been slandered by statements made on a radio programme by Linton on February 26, 2002.
The chartered accountant had appealed a ruling by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal that overturned a lower court ruling on the grounds that the speaking, writing and publishing of the words complained of attracted qualified privilege, sometimes known as Reynolds privilege.
The matter centres around the Layou River Economic Citizenship Programme and the Layou River Hotel project and goes back to 2002 when Pinard-Byrne sued Linton because of an article he published on a website and statements made about the same programme on a radio show, on which Linton, who was a journalist then, was a guest. (CMC)
