Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith committed no breach related to corporate donations to her failed bid for the post of Commonwealth Secretary General, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The decision by a single judge was handed down on Wednesday, ending for now a lawsuit filed by Wilfred Rattigan, a Jamaican-born retired United States (US) law enforcement agent.
The court also ruled that Rattigan, who was born and raised in Waterhouse, St Andrew, does not have legal standing to file the lawsuit, the former US FBI special agent confirmed to The Gleaner.
He has been ordered to pay Johnson Smith’s legal cost.
However, Rattigan said the court granted permission for him to appeal the decisions within the next 14 days.
Banking executive Keith Duncan and Jamaican conglomerates GraceKennedy and Musson Group contributed to the payment of US$99,000 or J$15 million to the American firm Finn Partners for public relations services provided to Johnson Smith’s commonwealth secretary general campaign, Information Minister Robert Morgan disclosed last September.
Other donors did not consent to having their names disclosed, Morgan said.
But a May 1, 2023 filing by the Finn Partners under the FARA revealed four others – Sandals Resorts International, The Jamaica National Group Limited, AIC Barbados Limited, and Barita Investments Limited.
The lawsuit sought a declaration that both Johnson Smith and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade did not comply with the law and a directive by the Finance Ministry that require them to report the donation as a gift.
It was filed in April this year after Rattigan waited months for the finance ministry to respond to an access to information request for details about the payment, including the related gift acceptance form and due-diligence report detailing the source of the funds, he told this newspaper.
But in an affidavit accompanying her application for the lawsuit to be dismissed, Johnson Smith said, Rattigan does not appear to have “sufficient interest” to file the claim.
– Livern Barrett/Jamaica Gleaner
