Minutes after the Constitutional Court dismissed the motion brought by former state minister, 33-year-old Kern Spencer, seeking full disclosures from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), his lawyers filed an appeal against the ruling.

This latest development could result in an adjournment in Spencer's fraud trial, which is set for Monday. It is expected that an application will be made before the Court of Appeal for the trial to be stayed pending the determination of the appeal.

Spencer had filed a motion against the DPP and the attorney general seeking to ascertain the circumstances under which his former co-accused, 45-year businessman Rodney Chin, had given a statement as a Crown witness while Chin was still an accused.

redress available

The court said that Spencer could make the application in the Resident Magistrate's Court because adequate means of redress were available before the resident magistrate who is to try his case.

Spencer is charged jointly with his 27-year-old former personal assistant, Colleen Wright, in connection with the multimillion-dollar Cuban light-bulb scandal.

Attorneys-at-law Patrick Atkinson, Debra Martin and Sharon Usim represented Spencer. They argued that the former junior minister wanted to know if Chin had been given any offer, promise, or inducement to give the statement. Spencer also wanted to know if the multimillion-dollar government contract, which was awarded to Chin in November, last year, while he was an accused, had anything to do with the statement. Chin said in the statement that Spencer asked him to front businesses for him, but he did not benefit from them.

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