By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

A SUPREME Court judge yesterday ordered the immediate arrest of media personality Christina “Chrissy Love” Thompson after she failed to appear before her for the fourth time to face charges of contempt of court.

Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson ordered the warrant be circulated to the Royal Bahamas Police Force as well as all border officials for Thompson’s arrest.

The judge said no “reasonable” explanation was given yesterday for Thompson’s failure to appear before the court, which followed her absences on two consecutive dates in August and again on September 15.

Thompson was due to appear before Justice Grant-Thompson in connection with certain contemptuous remarks she allegedly made on social media about the legal proceedings against former Cabinet minister Shane Gibson.

At the last hearing on September 15, Justice Grant-Thompson ordered the bench warrant be suspended until 9.30am yesterday for Thompson to appear in court. At the time, her attorney, Murrio Ducille, said Thompson had pre-arranged plans to take her son to school, and was thus out of the jurisdiction.

Yesterday, after the court noted Thompson’s absence, Mr Ducille raised the issue of his client’s filing of a constitutional motion against the originating summons and consequent proceedings last week.

In that motion, dated September 13, 2017, Thompson declares that the constitutional rights given her under articles 17, 19, 20, 23 and/or 28 of the Constitution have been infringed upon.

She is also requesting an order that the proceedings originating from a “verbal summons” returnable on August 31, as well as the summons bearing the date of August 31, be deemed a nullity, and that the proceedings commenced by the summons be stayed pending the determination of the constitutional motion.

Thompson is also seeking vindicatory damages, general damages, costs, and any other damages the court deems as just.

According to the court documents, the grounds of the constitutional motion - nine in total, include, but are not limited to: that the proceedings are an abuse of the court process; the summons failed to comply with the stipulations of section 59 of the Criminal Procedure Code; the summons presumes guilt on the part of the applicant; and that the summons failed to give the applicant a reasonable period of notice in which to defend herself.

Yesterday, Mr Ducille further submitted his client’s position that Justice Grant-Thompson should refer the hearing over the constitutional motion to another judge.

Mr Ducille submitted that while he is not seeking to bring into question the court’s competence in hearing and consequently managing the particulars of the motion, the “appearance” of the matter’s adjudication is crucial to the motion, and thus should be heard by an “independent mind”.

“That’s what justice is all about,” Mr Ducille concluded.

However, Justice Grant-Thompson said after hearing submissions that essentially request she recuse herself from the matter, she maintained she can hear both Thompson’s contempt of court matter and the constitutional motion.

After ordering Thompson’s arrest, she instructed Mr Ducille’s law firm to serve the Crown with the documents pertaining to the constitutional motion by September 22, which the latter was ordered to respond to by October 20.

Mr Ducille and his team will submit their skeleton arguments on October 27, to which the Crown will reply on November 3.

She ultimately set a date of November 12 at 2pm to hear the application of Thompson’s constitutional motion.