Public figures, especially those involved in politics are often the targets for harsh or even unjustified criticism. While some think this is par for the course, others like Senator Godwin Hulse, don't take it lightly. Hulse values his good name, and is always ready to go to court to energetically defend it. And that's why he went to court when former PUP party leader Francis Fonseca had some choice words about Hulse's conduct as Minister of Immigration. Hulse filed a defamation of character suit against Fonseca. Today, Hulse along with his attorney Yohanseh Cave and Fonseca's attorney, Kareem Musa, met in court for the pretrial review hearing. We spoke to them both to get the details...
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Agriculture
"Well it was, I think they call it pretrial review and it is simply to set a date for trial and to talk about whatever might be necessary for the trial whether there is gonna be requiring any support equipment or whether there are any witnesses that they should be concerned about, so that's basically it."
Marisol Amaya, KREM
"This one is in relation to which utterance?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Agriculture
"This is the case that I have brought against the Hon. Francis Fonseca for character defamation."
Marisol Amaya, KREM
"What statement did he make?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Agriculture
"I don't want to repeat the statement, but it was in relation at the time to the Penner passport issues."
Kareem Musa, Fonseca's Attorney
"The Honorable Godwin Hulse is complaining that the Honorable Francis Fonseca uttered comments that offended him, and that you know, he want to clear his name so to speak. We personally believe in our defense it is a two pronged defense we've set out justification and fair comment on a matter of public interest. The Honorable Godwin Hulse is a public figure. As a matter of fact I think this may be his fourth ministry that he's in charge of. He started out at the Ministry of Immigration and the particular comments that were made we in relation to the Kim Wong Hung fiasco, which as we now know everybody in government was responsible for that because the PM knew that Mr. Penner prior to the 2012 elections was issuing Nationality to individuals who did not qualify, and so to have has someone like Elvin Penner to be a Minister of State and then to give him the power to sign passports, to me everybody in that Cabinet, everybody in the Government should be held responsible, and so the comments made by the Hon. Francis Fonseca in 2013, you know, in my opinion, some of the words were true and the rest of the words were fair comment on a matter of public interest."
The trial is set for January 12, 2017.
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