Jamaica Gleaner
November 03, 1998


Wolfe

Chief Justice the Hon. Lensley Wolfe was hopping mad yesterday when the constitutional motion brought by former Resident Magistrate Norma Von Cork had to be put off because the attorney-at-law from the Attorney General's Department who is assigned to the case is appearing before the United Kingdom Privy Council.

"This court must go on, just as the Judicial Committee of the United Privy Council must go on," the Chief Justice said.

He added that it was a difficult matter to get three judges together to sit in the Constitutional Court. In adjourning the case sine die (without a date being fixed), the Chief Justice ordered that the lawyers make arrangement with the Registrar to get the case back on the list.

The Chief Justice made the comments after attorney-at-law Patrick Bailey, one of the attorneys representing Von Cork, informed the court comprising the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Panton and Mr. Justice Karl Harrison that Lennox Campbell, Senior Assistant Attorney General, was at the United Kingdom Privy Council. Mr Bailey informed the court that they had written to the Registrar about the matter.

Mr. R. N. A. Henriques, Q.C., is also representing Von Cork.

Von Cork, who is charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, filed a motion asking the Constitutional Court to dismiss the indictment and discharge her unconditionally.

Alternatively, Von Cork is seeking an order that all proceedings upon the indictment be stayed until it can be transferred from the Resident Magistrate's Court to a Circuit Court, to be heard and determined by a jury to ensure her full constitutional and legal right to a fair hearing. She is also seeking a declaration that her right to a fair hearing under the Constitution has been and is being contravened by instituting criminal proceedings against her in the Resident Magistrate's Court, before a judge of equal jurisdiction to that enjoyed by her.

Von Cork, who was temporarily employed, resigned from the judiciary a few months after Chief Justice and chairman of the Judicial Services Commission sent her on leave in November, 1997, pending investigations into the case.

She is charged jointly with Christopher Moore, 25, businessman, of St. Andrew; Radcilffe Orr, labourer, of Trench Town, St. Andrew; Constable Morris Thompson of the Cottage Police Station, Manchester, and Clive Lewis of Thompson Pen, St. Catherine.

They were charged after Von Cork sentenced Orr to nine months in prison in October last year for ganja-related offences for which Brian Bernal, son of Jamaica's Ambassdor to Washington, and Christopher Moore, were convicted of in 1995 and jailed.

Orr confessed in a cautioned statement that Bernal and Moore did not know anything about the ganja and later pleaded guilty to the charges. It is being alleged that the five plotted to have Orr plead guilty to the offences in exchange for a substantial sum of money.

The trial is awaiting the outcome of the constitutional motion, which is expected to be heard on November 30.

dt:11/03/1998 sc:jg