Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hilton is expected to give his ruling on Friday on whether he will approve the government’s stay application in the Jean Rony Jean Charles case or dismiss it.

Both sides in the legal wrangling have failed to come to a mutual agreement and the government decided to press on with the application for a stay.
Lawyers for Jean Charles and the government made submissions in the matter for some two hours yesterday.

In his opening submissions Attorney Loren Klein from the office of the Attorney general argued that his clients would be subject to prejudice if the stay was denied, citing several grounds for appeal.

He added that the respondents did not have time to respond to the initial application and were unable to address substantial issues in the constitutional motion.

He also cited the reliability of the evidence of the motion as the affidavit and motion were filed on different dates.

Mr. Klein also argued that Attorney Fred Smith has yet to produce sufficient evidence of a constitutional breech in this case, adding that the judge exercised a jurisdictional overreach on his request to the government to issue travel documents for Mr. Jean Charles as there was no proof that the applicant was entitled to this status.

He added the applicant being Jean Charles should have made a constitutional claim by now as he is 35 years old before seeking a constitutional redress.

Countering, was Jean Charles’ lawyer who argued that the hearing was not set to address and appeal, adding Klein failed to address the merits of Justice Hilton’s initial judgment.

Saying his submissions were littered with procedural and technical attacks, he added that if the application is stayed, nothing could stop the respondents from detaining Jean Charles again and subjecting him to further egregious treatment, saying that his client who would be subjected to prejudice.

He also addressed the government’s concern of the case opening the floodgates for other potential cases, saying it is not the court’s job to pre-empt these potential matters, but only to deal with the one in front of them.

Smith added that with the government’s concern over this happening, they would have to concur that there has been a systematic breakdown in the rule of law for some time now.

Mr.Justice Hilton said he will take all the evidence into consideration and give his ruling on Friday.