By Latrishka Thomas
The fate of transgender social media personality Washington Bramble, regarding charges under the Electronic Crimes Act, is still up in the air with her application to the Court of Appeal made over a month ago still unheard.
In March, Bramble was on trial for alleged untoward statements made on Facebook about Chief Magistrate Joanne Walsh.
The statements were said to have been made for the purpose of insulting, intimidating, causing hatred, and causing enmity towards the head of the magistracy.
When the prosecution rested its case after weeks on trial, Bramble was due to go on her defence, but she instead filed a ‘no case’ submission which yielded a somewhat positive result.
Magistrate Dane Hamilton Jnr ruled that there was not enough evidence to satisfy the charges related to causing enmity and intimidation.
But he ruled that Bramble does have a case to answer for causing hatred and insult. The defendant was not pleased with the decision and made it abundantly clear that she intended to appeal.
She was advised to see the case through and then appeal afterwards if she was not satisfied with the final decision, but when Bramble appeared in court in mid-April she had a document in hand.
The defendant had made an application to the Court of Appeal that very morning to have the higher court overrule the decision on the ‘no case’ submission.
She cited the reasons for her appeal, claiming that “the decision is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence”, that “illegal evidence was admitted by the court and that there is not sufficient legal evidence to sustain the decision after rejecting such illegal evidence”, and “the decision is erroneous on a point of law”.
With the expectation that Bramble’s appeal would have been heard within weeks, a date was set for Bramble to return to the Magistrate’s Court.
If the defendant lost her appeal, the trial would have proceeded this week.
But Bramble’s matter is still yet to be called before the appellate court.
As a result, her hearing in the Magistrate’s Court has been postponed to September 6.
