Linton wins constitutional case over Dominica Opposition Leader post

Derek Achong

Do­mini­can politi­cian Lennox Lin­ton has won a ma­jor con­sti­tu­tion­al case chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion by that coun­try’s pres­i­dent to leave the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader va­cant for al­most 18 months.

In a re­cent de­ci­sion, East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court Judge Zainab Jawara-Ala­mi up­held the con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge brought by Lin­ton, who held the post be­tween 2014 and 2022 be­fore be­ing suc­ceed­ed by Jes­ma Paul-Vic­tor.

Lin­ton, through his lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, filed the case af­ter Do­mini­can Pres­i­dent Syl­vanie Bur­ton failed to ap­point an Op­po­si­tion Leader fol­low­ing Paul-Vic­tor’s res­ig­na­tion in June 2024.

Paul-Vic­tor was sub­se­quent­ly reap­point­ed by Bur­ton in Jan­u­ary this year.

In the case, Ram­lo­gan chal­lenged Bur­ton’s fail­ure to con­sid­er the views of four Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors when de­ter­min­ing who should be ap­point­ed.

Ram­lo­gan ar­gued that al­though the sen­a­tors were not elect­ed, their views were rel­e­vant un­der Sec­tion 66(2) of Do­mini­ca’s Con­sti­tu­tion.

Un­der the pro­vi­sion, the Pres­i­dent shall ap­point an elect­ed mem­ber of the House of As­sem­bly who com­mands the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of elect­ed mem­bers who do not sup­port the Gov­ern­ment.

It fur­ther states that if no elect­ed mem­ber ap­pears to com­mand such sup­port, the elect­ed mem­ber who com­mands the sup­port of the largest sin­gle group of mem­bers who do not sup­port the Gov­ern­ment should be ap­point­ed.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Jawara-Ala­mi re­ject­ed the nar­row in­ter­pre­ta­tion ad­vanced by Bur­ton and Do­mini­can At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Levi Pe­ter, who ar­gued that the sen­a­tors’ views were ir­rel­e­vant be­cause they were un­elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The judge agreed with Lin­ton’s le­gal team that the sen­a­tors were full mem­bers of the House, as Do­mini­ca does not have a sep­a­rate Sen­ate, un­like coun­tries such as Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“To ex­clude the four sen­a­tors from con­sid­er­a­tion would be in­con­sis­tent with the con­sti­tu­tion­al de­f­i­n­i­tion of mem­ber­ship of the house and would fail to give ef­fect to the plain lan­guage em­ployed by the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” Jus­tice Jawara-Ala­mi said.

The judge al­so found that Bur­ton was wrong to leave the po­si­tion va­cant with­out fol­low­ing the pre­scribed two-stage process.

“The use of the word "shall" is im­per­a­tive and re­quires the Pres­i­dent to make an ap­point­ment where the con­sti­tu­tion­al con­di­tions are met,” Jus­tice Jawara-Ala­mi said.

How­ev­er, the judge de­clined to grant re­lief to Paul-Vic­tor for breach­es of her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, as Lin­ton had not ini­tial­ly sought such re­lief in his law­suit.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Lin­ton said he pur­sued the case out of gen­uine con­cern for con­sti­tu­tion­al su­prema­cy, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty and the rule of law.

“This vic­to­ry does not be­long to me alone. It be­longs to every Do­mini­can who be­lieves that pub­lic pow­er must be ex­er­cised law­ful­ly; that the Op­po­si­tion has an in­dis­pens­able role in our democ­ra­cy; and that the Con­sti­tu­tion must re­main su­pe­ri­or to po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience, ex­ec­u­tive pref­er­ence, and par­ti­san ma­neu­ver­ing,” Lin­ton said.

“To­day, the Con­sti­tu­tion won. Democ­ra­cy won. Ac­count­abil­i­ty won,” Lin­ton said.

Lin­ton was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jared Ja­groo, Vishaal Siewsaran and Ronald Charles.

The Gov­ern­ment of Do­mini­ca was rep­re­sent­ed by An­tho­ny Astaphan, SC, Ja­son Lawrence, Tame­ka Bur­ton and Pe­ter.