Two senior members of the Grenada Bar Association (GBA) have warned that the re-election of Keith Mitchell's New National Party to government could plunge the country into a crisis.
 
GBA president Jimmy Bristol and former Attorney General Lloyd Noel accused the NNP administration of disrespecting the country's institutions, including the judiciary.
 
They are particularly incensed at the behavior of the government's legal advisor Hugh Wildman, and are seeking to have him disbarred by the Court of Appeal of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

 
"If Grenadians go ton the polls on the 8th of July and they vote back NNP into office – If they make that mistake and they don't change the system, we're in serious trouble,'' Noel told journalists at a news conference today.  "If something doesn't give on the 8th of July, I think we'll be in a far worse position than we were on the 19th of October, 1983.''
 
Following the events of October 19, Grenada was invaded by United States troops.
 
Bristol said the GBA felt "duty bound'' to provide the Grenadian public with "a holistic view of the government's disregard of the law,'' including several failed court challenges against lawyers and judges.  He also cited attacks on the judiciary by Wildman.
 
The GBA, Bristol said, decided to ask for the disbarment of Wilman after he suggested that a recent OECS Court of Appeal decision was politically motivated.
 
Wildman's suggestion, described as "contemptuous of the court'' by Bristol, came after the court dismissed an application by the Grenada government seeking to appeal an earlier ruling favouring NDC candidate and General Secretary, Peter David,  in a dual citizenship matter.
 
Bristol said Wildman, "his superiors, his followers and his cohorts have carried out a campaign of harassment of our judiciary and our legal profession for the last 13 years.''
 
The GBA president said, however, that the campaign has failed.
 
"They have failed and they will continue to fail because what is driving them is not truth,'' argued Bristol. " What is driving them is evil intent to control the country; to do away with the judiciary, which is recognized, as fundamental to good governance as a check and balance to the abuse of the power of the executive.''
 
Bristol said "lawyers are independent'' and the only thing that stands between tyranny and free people is an independent bar and judiciary.
 
Both he and Noel, a lifetime member of the GBA, made reference to Zimbabwe.  Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, is widely regarded as a tyrant who has intimidated his foes and has refused to demit office following general elections widely regarded to have been won by the opposition.
 
"Do we want a Zimbabwe in Grenada?'' asked Bristol.  "We are heading rapidly that way.  Because in Zimbabwe they jail the judges, the jail the lawyers, they jail the opposition.''
 
Noel expressed concern at some of the utterances coming from the NNP officials during the current election campaign in Grenada.
 
"Don't ever think what happened could only happen in Zimbabwe,'' he said. "Grenada has had so many firsts in the Caribbean that we could be another first.  So we have to watch it.  The way the (NNP) accusations are being put, it looks as though there is a ploy somewhere – under the surface – that something could derail the process.''