Dear Hon. Premier McLaughlin,
We write to notify you and all parties copied, that the petition for the people initiated referendum on the proposed cruise berthing facility, in accordance with Section 70 of the Cayman Islands Constitution 2009, has now exceeded 90% of the requirement to trigger the referendum.
The grassroots community group Cruise Port Referendum Cayman (‘CPR Cayman’) have now collected and internally verified 4,760 signatures of Cayman Islands registered voters.
In accordance with Section 70 of the Constitution, the '25% of the electorate' threshold is to ensure that referendums are not called for spurious reasons or those with interest to only a small number of people, which is evidently not the case in this instance. We fully expect the petition to exceed the number required, 5,288 verified signatures, in a matter of weeks. Volunteers remain dedicated to the collection of signatures on the class 2 petition and giving the opportunity for the public to make an informed decision in accordance with their constitutional rights.
The Cayman Islands Government should not sign any binding contracts or contracts with penalty, until after the referendum result so as to prevent misrepresentation to international corporations as well as avoiding paying contract breach penalties with public funds.
Once the 25% petition threshold has been met, the Government must hold the referendum. We reference the Cayman Compass article dated February 7th, 2019, where Mr. Andrew Woodcock of Hampson and Company stated:
“The effect of Section 70 is that, where a petition signed by 25 percent of the electorate is submitted to Cabinet, there is no discretion. A referendum must be called,” he said.
“It is for this reason that it is a highly democratic provision. This is particularly so in a smaller jurisdiction such as ours, where the number of signatures required is relatively small.”
Once the petition for the people’s referendum numbers are reached, we will submit the petition to Cabinet. We look forward to the disclosure of all details related to the proposed project in their most current form to ensure that our people shall have the right to make an informed decision on this issue of significant national importance at the time of the vote.
Yours sincerely,
Gabriella Hernandez
Michelle Lockwood
Katrina Jurn
Linda Clark
Shirley Roulstone
Mario Rankin
Johann Moxam
On behalf of Cruise Port Referendum (CPR) Cayman
Email cprcayman@gmail.com
Facebook.com/CPRCayman
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