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(CMC) — The Bermuda Bar Council (BBC) is supporting an objection to a bid to hire a leading London barrister to challenge a Supreme Court ruling that quashed a ban on same-sex marriage.
The Royal Gazette newspaper said it understood the council has told the Progressive Labour Party government that it does not support the application for James Guthrie QC to lead the government’s appeal.
The paper said the BBC is believed to have ruled the Attorney-General’s Chambers failed to show there were no island barristers with the appropriate expertise to argue the case.
Home Affairs Minister Walton Brown confirmed in July that the government would appeal the landmark court judgment that reversed the same-sex marriage ban.
It is now up to the Immigration Department, part of his ministry, to decide if a temporary work permit will be approved for the overseas lawyer.
The government was not immediately available for comment.
Attorney Mark Pettingill, who is representing Rod Ferguson, one of the respondents in the case, said he was not surprised by the Bar Council’s decision.
Pettingill, a former Attorney-General said “there are criteria that must be met in order for an application to be made to bring in overseas counsel and in this case the Bar clearly was not satisfied that it was warranted.
“What will be interesting is that it is a matter for the minister who announced the appeal whether he adheres to, or takes the position of, the Bar Council in allowing Mr Guthrie to come in or not.”
Former Chief Justice Ian Kawaley struck down parts of the Domestic Partnership Act (DPA), which aimed to replace same-sex marriage with civil partnerships, in June. The appeal is due to be heard next month.
A request for a special practising certificate must be made to the Bar Council for an overseas lead counsel before they can appear in Bermuda courts.
The newspaper reported that permission was sought for Guthrieto act for the Crown.
Bermuda is the only country in the world to have allowed same-sex marriage and then banned it.
The DPA reversed a Supreme Court ruling from May last year, which had paved the way for gay couples to marry in Bermuda and on island-registered ships around the world.
But Mr Justice Kawaley, who has since stepped down, ruled the legislation was at odds with the Bermuda constitution, which protects the right to freedom of conscience and outlaws discrimination on the basis of creed.
The original Supreme Court decision in May last year came in a judgment by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons after Bermudian Winston Godwin and Greg DeRoche, his Canadian partner, litigated against the Registrar-General for refusing to post their wedding banns.
Despite their landmark victory, Godwin and DeRoche chose to marry in Canada, but there were at least 10 same-sex marriages on the island plus four at sea on Bermuda-flagged ships.
The firestorm of criticism the ban on same-sex marriage sparked here and abroad led to Ferguson’s decision to launch his crowdsourced civil case against the Attorney-General on the grounds that his constitutional rights had been breached.
Bermudian lawyer Julia Saltus and her Ghanaian-American partner Judith Aidoo were the first gay couple to wed here.
The Netherlands was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001.
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