Arthur Saldivar Loses Court Battle Against the P.U.P.

The People’s United Party will not have to deal with Attorney Arthur Saldivar anytime soon and that’s because the second lawsuit he filed against the party was thrown out in its entirety this afternoon.  After a four-hour hearing session, Supreme Court Justice Courtenay Abel dismissed Saldivar’s application for an emergency injunction, he was seeking, to halt this Sunday’s convention in the Belmopan constituency. Justice Abel also dismissed Saldivar’s substantial claim and all reliefs that he was seeking.  The application to contest the Belmopan convention was first rejected by the party. This prompted Saldivar to file an application for an injunction to stop the convention which was originally scheduled for July first. That application was later withdrawn after the P.U.P. decided to postpone the convention and allow Saldivar to re-apply. He did so and his application was again rejected by the party’s Vetting Committee, which is chaired by Leni-Jo Usher. The substantial matter for the original lawsuit was still alive and Saldivar managed to obtain a default judgment for which the P.U.P. has made an application to set aside.  He then filed a second lawsuit and on Wednesday, after meeting with the P.U.P.’s National Executive. He failed to convince its members that he is fit to contest the convention. This leads us to today’s hearing. Saldivar asked the court to make several declarations with respect to alleged bias on behalf of the vetting committee. But Saldivar’s attorney, Christoff Rodriguez of Trinidad and Tobago, could not convince the court that his client’s rights were breached due to bias and unfairness. Rodriquez did not inform the court of the default judgment obtained previously and also failed to serve two of the defendants.  As a result, the entire matter was dismissed. Saldivar spoke to the media as he exited the courtroom.

Arthur Saldivar

Arthur Saldivar, Claimant

“I will not be on the ticket for the convention of the People’s United Party in Belmopan. No I will not be and sadly not only for me but for my supporters who are PUP members. This is about them and I go back to consult with them to determine what I do further. We cannot win them all in terms of getting a decision in our favor. In this particular regard, what must be borne in mind that there are a couple of issues that prevented the outcome that I would have liked to have had. The first being, given the time frame and the fact that one of the main parties of the action could not have been served the whole issue of bias was not addressed. The court could not bring itself to address actual or apparent bias which was the main basis of my application. So in that particular regard given what transpired because again we were up against it with time, the decision was taken to advance both issues together that being the injunction and the claim. This is where the cookie crumbled. We had the previous case which ended in default judgment. The view of my attorneys was that there was a requirement that there was a new claim as oppose to attaching this application to the old one. So that was done. In relation to that being done, the court is no, that is should have been a continuation of the case that we had perceived to have been finished. That is where the whole duty of candor was deemed to have been breached. So in that regard, by breaching the duty of candor we were placed on a sticky wicket if you play cricket. By virtue of being place on that sticky wicket we were bold on it. That is what you call litigation risk.”