A list of all members of the People’s National Movement (PNM) was brought to court yesterday, however, it was not made public nor handled by attorneys representing Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday and his wife Oma.

Panday’s lead attorney, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, had requested the list on Monday to support his case of an apparent political bias against a magistrate presiding over a criminal offence against his clients.

The matter is being heard at the Hall of Justice by Justice Vashiest Kokaram.

Attorney Michael Quamina, who appeared for the PNM, told the judge that the list of members should not be put into the public domain on the basis of confidentially.

Quamina said that it is a ’very serious thing’ and proposed that instead of the list being made public by it going into evidence, Kokaram could peruse it and any question relating to who is on the list could be asked.

Quamina added that another option should be to have Panday’s lead attorney and Douglas Mendes SC, who is representing the interest of Espinet, view the list to see whether the names they were curious about were there.

Kokaram eventually ruled that the list would not be admitted into evidence by Assistant General Secretary of the PNM Rose Janniere and ordered that she place the list in a sealed envelope and leave it in care of his Judicial Secretary Officer.

Janniere was allowed to enter the witness box, only to confirm whether or not Espinet, her father or other trustees of the foundation were members, whether lifetime or recent, of the PNM.

Janniere said that they were not and she was allowed to leave, with the overflowing manilla folder of all PNM members, in hand.

Mendes told the court that Espinet’s father, Alexander Alexis, was not a founding member of the PNM and that the Morris Marshall Development Foundation, though named after a former PNM Member of Parliament, is not a PNM organisation. He added that if anything, the foundation, of which Espinet is both a trustee and treasurer, could be associated with the UNC since it received better funding from the party when they were in power.

Mendes further submitted that both Panday and Alexis were in the trade union business and that if anything they were comrades and not political enemies. He pointed out that when Alexis left office in 1976 after joining the party in 1960 (five years after it was founded), Panday made his debut in Parliament so that they could not have been on opposite sides of the political divide.

The matter was then adjourned to October 22 for judgment.

Panday and his wife Oma are seeking to have magistrate Espinet recuse herself from the preliminary enquiry proceedings on the basis of apparent bias.

The Pandays, along with businessmen Ishwar Galbaransingh and former government minister Carlos John, are charged with a bribery offences related to the Piarco Airport project.