A couple who took their public challenge of the island’s pandemic-era quarantine laws to the courts in a case that spanned years have encountered a new legal setback — but remain on course to take their dispute before the Court of Appeal.

Sophia Cannonier has filed a notice of appeal, accompanied by grounds of appeal, against a Magistrates’ Court ruling last year that she and her partner broke the law when they returned to Bermuda as unvaccinated travellers in July 2021 and refused to comply with travel regulations.

The case was swiftly taken up by opponents of the regulations, who argued that the requirements were overly restrictive and discriminated against residents who elected not to take the Covid-19 vaccine.

Ms Cannonier told The Royal Gazette on Wednesday that the appeal route remained the couple’s “strongest legal path”.

However, her additional request for a judicial review — through civil proceedings — to challenge the conviction was turned down this week in the Supreme Court.

Ms Cannonier and her husband, Michael Watson, were convicted in Magistrates’ Court in July 2024 of breaching the island’s public safety rules three years earlier.

Both were charged with refusing to comply with a mandatory quarantine as directed by a health officer and failing to complete a travel authorisation form.

The couple followed through on a request for a criminal appeal challenging their conviction — with that appeal now pending — but Ms Cannonier’s push for a judicial review into their conviction by the magistrate, Khamisi Tokunbo, was turned down on Wednesday by Puisne Judge Andrew Martin.

Ms Cannonier’s application for judicial review cited the lengthy delays that had beset their matter.

The five-day trial was split up across June 2022 to July 2023, but Mr Justice Martin’s ruling noted that Mr Tokunbo “did not deliver his decision before he retired on 14 September, 2023”.

His findings said: “For reasons that are unexplained and for which there is no clear evidence, the matter was left in abeyance until May 2024, when the learned magistrate was invited to prepare and deliver his reasons in this matter, which he did in a written decision dated 24 June 2024.”

The couple’s argument against the island’s quarantine rules, which required non-vaccinated travellers to isolate on arrival home in Bermuda, rested on a natural immunity argument that they had already contracted and recovered from Covid-19.

However, Mr Tokunbo’s judgment found the argument irrelevant for the couple’s failure to comply and they were accordingly convicted.

Mr Justice Martin noted that Ms Cannonier, now represented in court by Vaughan Caines, sought a judicial review of Mr Tokunbo’s ruling “on the grounds that she has been denied a fair trial” under the constitution.

Her submission argued that “the delay of about ten months between the delivery of written submissions following the hearing in August 2023 and the delivery of the decision on 23rd June 2024 means that she was denied a fair trial within a reasonable time”.

In response, Mr Justice Martin highlighted Ms Cannonier’s own delay in seeking a judicial review of the decision, only seeking leave to pursue it on September 30 of this year — 15 months after Mr Tokunbo’s decision was handed down.

Court rules require the application for judicial review to be made within six months, unless “good reason” can be given in support of an extension.

Ms Cannonier “advanced various possible reasons, which included the need to consider the matter with her legal advisers, the preparation of evidence, the complexity of the matter and the fact that the applicant was unrepresented” — although Mr Justice Martin noted that Marc Daniels had represented the couple at their trial in Magistrates’ Court.

He added that Ms Cannonier’s delay in seeking a review had been “five months longer than the delay she complains about in relation to the delivery of the learned magistrate’s reasons”.

He found there had been no facts presented to the court to justify granting an extension.

Mr Justice Martin also highlighted that counsel for Ms Cannonier “has also sought and been granted an extension of time in which to appeal against the decision of the learned magistrate and she has filed a notice of appeal supported by full grounds of appeal”.

He added: “That appeal is now pending.

“In those circumstances, this court will not grant leave to pursue prerogative relief in respect of the same grievance that is pending appeal before the court sitting in its appellate jurisdiction from the Magistrates’ Court.”

Accordingly, Mr Justice Martin ruled that, on top of the delay, judicial review would be declined because “the proceedings would be duplicative of her appeal remedy and would amount to an abuse of the court’s process”.

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