On Friday afternoon, June 21, a number of persons, claiming to represent civil society, and led by Mr. Roosevelt Harris aka Litchie of Stoney Ground, did not succeed in delivering a letter written to Attorney General, Mr. James Wood, QC.
The protesters gathered at the southern area of the privately-owned Caribbean Commercial Centre between 3.30 and 3.40 pm. After waiting until about 3.50 pm, they proceeded north towards the building housing the Attorney General’s Chambers. They stopped some distance from the steps where Ms Jacqueline Richardson stood and waited to deliver the letter to Mr. Wood.
The Attorney General, however, did not appear until shortly before 5.00 p.m. and, escorted by two Police Officers, who were standing outside his Chambers, he proceeded to his vehicle. He attempted to leave the area but was temporary prevented from driving away by the protesters who blocked the passage-way. Eventually, with the intervention of the Police, and with one defiant person being restrained by one or two persons from the group, the protesters turned aside, thus allowing the passage of the Attorney General’s vehicle.
The undelivered letter to Mr Wood, said to contain a number of concerns, has not been made available to members of the media by Mr. Harris, the leader of the Civil Society protesters. Mr Harris has instead revealed the contents of an exchange of letters between him and the Attorney General prior to the protest. The quotations from those letters are self-explanatory. In the first communication to Mr Wood –an email dated June 19 – Mr Harris wrote: “On June 15th 2013 we communicated to you by email requesting your attention to receive a letter from us the People of Anguilla at the Governor’s Office on Tuesday 18th June 2013. You never attended nor responded to us.
“We will therefore be holding a peaceful protest outside of the Attorney General’s Chambers on Friday 21st June 2013 at which point we wish to present our concerns to you in writing at approximately 3.50 p.m.
“We will require that you meet us downstairs of the Chambers so that we can present our letter to you.
“We look forward to your receiving us and giving ear to our concerns.”
Mr Harris has released to the media a copy of the Attorney General’s letter to him dated 19 June. The main text of that letter is as follows:
“You will appreciate that there is often a need for me to attend to urgent and important government business. If I am available at 3.50 pm on Friday 21st June 2013, I will meet with you to receive your concerns.
“It would not be appropriate for me to have any discussions with a large group of people outside the Legal Department. If I am available, I am content to meet with you and perhaps one or, at most, two others who represent your group, in Chambers.
“Finally, whilst I can hear the concerns that you may have, you will also appreciate that as a civil servant and principal legal adviser to government, I cannot enter into discussions concerning government activities, in particular those of the Legal Department.”
In a second letter dated 20th June, Mr Harris criticised the Attorney General’s decision. He wrote among other matters: “I did not express at any point in my letter, a desire to have a ‘discussion’ with you. My only indication to you was that a letter would be presented to you and that we would be downstairs of your Chambers to do so.” Later on his letter, Mr Harris wrote: “We will be present downstairs to deliver our communication to you. If you choose not to be there, the People of Anguilla I can assure you will take due notice.”
It generally appears from the letters that the Attorney General declined meeting the protesters downstairs as he had previously invited one or two others from the group to meet him in his upstairs Chambers instead. In his letter of June 20, Mr Harris told Mr Wood: “May I suggest to you that it would be wholly discourteous to the People of Anguilla, who will number more than the two persons, making the presentation of the letter to do so ‘behind the curtain’ as it were, when they are present to witness your receiving the letter.”
Meanwhile, Mr Harris told the media on Monday evening this week that since Friday, June 21, he and the Civil Society group had not taken any decision on the way forward.
