DPP under Fire for Dropping Treating Case against the Skerrit Administration

Dominica’s Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Sherma Dalrymple, is currently under fire for the way she dropped the treating case brought by the opposition against the DLP administration. According to Clement Joseph, a Dominican and former DPP in Turks and Caicos, the treating case has a lot of merits and the way Dalrymple entered a nolle pros through the process of nolle prosequi is questionable.

Nolle pros is when a plaintiff or prosecutor drops a case against a defendant in the court of law. The process by which the nolle pros application is entered into court records is known as nolle prosequi. While Dalrymple has claimed that the 2014 election treating case lacks merits and consequently withdrew the case.

But the opposition claimed that an abundance of evidence shows that the matter can stand up to court, and that Dalrymple dismissed the case contrary to the order of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to have the matter heard at the Roseau Magistrates Court. Joseph said he is willing to work with other local Dominican lawyers to resuscitate the case and see it to its logical conclusion in the courts.

According to the former Turks and Caicos DPP, a nolle pros can be overturned in court if it is percieved to have been misconceived in law.

CCM executive member Loftus Durand is also of the view that Dalrymple has not been transparent in the manner she treated the case with kids’ gloves. Durand said the way the DPP withdrew the case hours before it came up for hearing underscores her mediocrity and lack of decency in managing public prosecution.

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