TEAM Karen, led by PNM political leader contender Karen Nunez-Tesheira, has lost their appeal of a judge’s refusal to grant an injunction to postpone the party’s internal election – which begins this weekend ­– until her lawsuit over the changes to the electoral process is determined.

The emergency appeal was heard late on Friday by Justices of Appeal Nolan Bereaux, Peter Rajkumar and Maria Wilson.

On Friday’s virtual link were PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley, chairman contender Stuart Young and general secretary Foster Cummings and the Team Karen members. Cummings has been sued as representative of all of the PNM except for Nunez-Tesheira and the two others.

At the end of more than two hours of submissions, at 9 pm, the judges dismissed the appeal, ruling they found nothing wrong with the way the trial judge exercised his discretion in refusing to grant the injunction.

Bereaux, who delivered the unanimous oral decision, said, “In exercising his discretion, the judge examined the evidence and the law. In considering where the balance of justice/injustice lay, he found on the side of the respondents,”

“We can only overturn that discretion if found to be clearly wrong in misunderstanding of law or misapprehension of the evidence. We act by review only. “

Bureaux said the Appeal Court could find no fault with Justice Devindra Rampersad’s exercise of his discretion.

[caption id="attachment_987585" align="alignnone" width="884"] Dr Keith Rowley, prime minister and PNM political leader. - SUREASH CHOLAI[/caption]

He said the judge examined the evidence as thoroughly as he could. “We cannot say he made a fatal error. We can say he was plainly right, We have no option but to dismiss the appeal. We can find no fault with the judge’s decision,”Bereaux said.

The judges also ordered Nunez-Tesheira and the others to pay the PNM’s costs.

On Wednesday, Justice Rampersad dismissed the injunction application of Nunez-Tesheira and two members of her slate.

He said he was not minded to granting the interim relief sought as the greater risk of prejudice in doing so lay with the party.

Rampersad also held the application was devoid of evidence, saying an election should not be stopped or altered based “only on fears without cogent evidence.”

He said if the complaints of an unfair election, raised by Nunez-Teshiera and her team materialises, they can challenge the outcome of the process.

“...The claimants may have other recourse should the process be found, in fact, to be tainted. Even though it is a more onerous task to correct an election after the fact, evidence of actual illegality and unfairness would be grounds to set it aside,” the judge said.

Although he dismissed the application for the injunction, the judge, however, held he was not able to, at this stage, come to a definitive finding on how to interpret article 18.1 of the PNM’s constitution.

Before the start of the hearing on Friday, Bureaux had to chastise th