{"id":3097,"date":"2019-10-02T21:27:03","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T21:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2019-10-02T21:27:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T21:27:05","slug":"montego-bay-pride-joined-by-jfj-in-case-against-davis-sjmc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3097","title":{"rendered":"Montego Bay Pride joined by JFJ in case against Davis\/SJMC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Montego Bay Pride is being helped by Jamaicans for Justice to bring a claim for judicial review of the decision by Montego Bay Mayor, Homer Davis and the St. James Municipal Corporation, to ban Montego Bay Pride from using the Montego Bay Cultural Centre.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Tuesday, September 24 Montego Bay Pride filed a case\nagainst Mayor Homer Davis and the St. James Municipal Corporation for banning\nthe group from using the Montego Bay Cultural Centre to host some of its events\nin October.&nbsp; The case was brought by\nMontego Bay Pride\u2019s Founder and Development Coordinator, Maurice Tomlinson, on\nbehalf of the unincorporated group. Tomlinson is being represented by lawyers\nfrom Jamaicans for Justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Mayor\u2019s decision was reported in the newspapers where\nthe mayor alleged that banning Montego Bay Pride from the Cultural Centre was\nnecessary to preserve the \u201csacredness\u201d of the space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his application for judicial review, Tomlinson states\nthat by rescinding the permission given to Montego Bay Pride by the Cultural\nCentre, the decision of the mayor and the Municipal Corporation was\n\u201cdiscriminatory, unconstitutional and ultra vires.\u201d&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tomlinson said that: \u201cThe decision by the mayor and the\nMunicipal Corporation to ban us has been devastating and with far reaching\nimplications. \u201cCiting this decision, other venues that were to host our events\ncancelled and the police said that so much anti-gay sentiment has been whipped\nup in the city that it would be impossible to safely hold our Walk for Rights.\nI was even mobbed and attacked by vendors who support the mayor while I was\noutside the Cultural Centre. The mayor and the Municipal Corporation have\neffectively denied vulnerable LGBT Montegonians any safe place in this city,\neven though we are taxpaying members of the public and many of us are central\nto the country\u2019s vital tourism industry. The decision has to be reversed.\u201d&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Executive Director of Jamaicans for Justice, Rodje Malcolm,\nsaid that: \u201cAttorneys from Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) have agreed to represent\nMr. Tomlinson, on behalf of the members of Montego Bay Pride, in his\napplication for Judicial Review. Information JFJ has received suggests that the\ndecision to revoke access to a public meeting space was potentially unlawful\nand based principally on the personal views of one individual. However, in a free\nand democratic society, the personal views of public officials &#8211; regardless of\nthe issue or group \u2013 are not what determines if people can access public spaces\nfor peaceful and lawful discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Montego Bay Pride is being helped by Jamaicans for Justice to bring a claim for judicial review of the decision by Montego Bay Mayor, Homer Davis and the St. James Municipal Corporation, to ban Montego Bay Pride from using the Montego Bay Cultural Centre. On Tuesday, September 24 Montego Bay Pride filed a case against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1094,1585,283,919,207,30],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-councillor-homer-davis","tag-jamaicans-for-justice","tag-mayor-of-montego-bay","tag-montego-bay-pride","tag-st-james-municipal-corporation","tag-western-jamaica"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3098,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}