YOUTH Development and National Service Minister Foster Cummings has appealed a judge’s refusal to grant him an injunction to stop Opposition Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial from publicly speaking about his private and confidential information.
On Tuesday, Cummings’s attorneys filed a notice of procedural appeal against the June 10 decision of Justice Nadia Kangaloo. She refused to grant him the injunction against Lutchmedial, saying she was not satisfied there was need for one.
He has outlined 13 findings of fact and 14 findings of law of the judge which he does not agree with, and has advanced 13 grounds of complaint.
Cummings also wants injunctions to stop Lutchmedial from repeating his private banking and personal information, which she presented at a UNC Monday Night Forum meeting on May 16, and to get her to remove recordings of the meeting on all platforms. He also wants her to remove all defamatory comments placed by third parties on all social media platforms.
In her ruling, Kangaloo said Cummings – who is also the MP for La Horquetta/Talparo and general secretary of the ruling People’s National Movement – failed to provide evidence to support his contention that Lutchmedial's statements and publishing of personal information, including banking details, were reckless and affected his family life.
His complaint of the harm caused to him and his family, she said, did not materialise and had been defused by his rebuttals to Lutchmedial’s statements in the print media and by comments in support of him on the Facebook platform.
The judge also said Cummings’s evidence was “comparatively weak,” which was “fatal” to his application.
“None of the matters complained of are deserving of the restraint sought,” Kangaloo said in her ruling.
Cummings’s notice of appeal says, “The learned trial judge erred in law and was plainly wrong in her finding at this stage of the proceedings and upon the evidence that was before the court that the appellant’s banking information was not private and confidential...
“The learned trial judge erred in law in her finding that the respondent had a defence in justification in publishing the statements…”
He has also complained that judge predetermined the issues and exhibited apparent bias by pronouncing on the veracity of the evidence, and that she erred when she held there “were no serious issue to be tried on the evidence at any trial of this matter.”
The matter has been set for hearing on October 17.
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