Sitting and former MPs, as well as candidates, provided written evidence during a civil case that aired some of the inner processes of the Progressive Labour Party.

Puisne Judge Shade Subair Williams ruled on the matter, having received evidence from Curtis Dickinson, a former finance minister vying to lead the ruling party, fellow MPs Wayne Furbert and Renée Ming, and party chairwoman Dawn Simmons.

Her judgment on Friday — which has been seen by The Royal Gazette but has yet to be published officially — came after Mr Dickinson and other PLP members brought a legal action to block progress on amendments they claimed were against the party’s constitution.

The proposals moved that anyone who publicly campaigned against the PLP during the past two general elections should be prevented from automatically joining the party and that people must have been members for at least a year to be eligible to be delegates.

Mrs Justice Subair Williams’s 85-page ruling also contained excerpts from the minutes of the PLP’s Central Committee meeting on August 24, when the two proposals were moved, including remarks attributed to former premier Paula Cox.

Ms Cox, who herself ran against the party as an independent candidate in the 2017 election, reportedly said she had not discussed the proposed changes with members of her Constituency 9 branch, which had “signed up two committed new members who would benefit from the opportunity to serve as delegate or alternate”.

The minutes, according to the judgment, recorded that Ms Cox said at the meeting the “real issue” was that the PLP appeared to automatically accept anyone who submitted a membership form and that the party should consider “having a vetting process so that acceptance was not automatic”.

It was noted that she said that process would address concerns about former members of the One Bermuda Alliance or other parties joining the PLP.

An affidavit from Ms Simmons — listed as a defendant in the case alongside the party’s secretary-general, Patricia Basden, both sued “in a representative capacity” — stated that the level of applications for new membership received leading up to the organisation’s annual general conference this year had “never been seen before in the history of the Bermuda PLP”.

The annual general conference, during which party delegates will vote for either Mr Dickinson or Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, to lead the party and country, was initially scheduled to take place from October 28 to 30, but was postponed in light of the legal action.

Ms Simmons claimed in another affidavit that between 71 and 241 new members joined the PLP each year from 2016 to 2025, but 1,103 applications were received in 2026 as of August 31.

That affidavit noted that the party’s executive committee, under her direction and in response to “the unprecedented volume of application forms received, the concerns raised about the validity of some of these forms and the party’s requirement to be compliant with banking regulations”, created a sub-committee to review the membership process in May.

The sub-committee comprised Ms Basden as well as the party’s assistant secretary-general, its organiser and the membership secretary.

Mrs Justice Subair Williams’s findings included evidence filed to address the issue of “subscription sponsorship”, refuting any suggestion of impropriety against Mr Dickinson’s campaign related to the possibility of sponsored membership dues.

Ms Ming’s written evidence said that when she first joined the party, her membership fee was paid by Dame Jennifer Smith, then the premier.

In it, she explained: “There was nothing secretive about that arrangement. I had expressly chosen to join the party, I completed and signed the application, and another person paid the financial subscription on my behalf.

“To the best of my knowledge, no issue was raised at that time suggesting that my membership was invalid or improper merely because the subscription had been paid by Dame Jennifer rather than personally by me.”

Ms Ming said she has paid fees for other members since joining the organisation and being elected MP for Constituency 1, St George’s North, in 2017.

She added: “From my more than 20 years of involvement with the PLP … it has been my experience and understanding that payment of another person’s membership subscription is not a new practice within the party.

“I have known the practice to occur over many years, including politicians, party members and others assisting persons who wished to become or remain financial members of the PLP by paying their subscriptions for them.”

Ms Ming also stated that it was always important that new PLP members knew they were joining the party and that paying someone’s membership with their knowledge and consent is “materially different from purporting to enrol a person who has not applied, has not consented or does not exist”.

Mr Furbert’s written evidence stated that PLP MPs have paid the subscriptions of other members, and that he had done so ever since he began representing the party in the House of Assembly in 2011.

He said: “It is the custom and practice of the party to assist individuals in branches to become members; this was known by every MP and the executives of the party.”

Mr Furbert added that David Burt, the Premier and Minister of Finance, paid the fees for several party members when he first ran for leader in 2016 in order to “strengthen their branches and increase the delegate representatives supporting his candidacy”.

He also recalled PLP MPs paying for party members’ forms when Mr Burt ran against Mr Dickinson for PLP leadership in 2022.

Mrs Justice Subair Williams ruled largely in favour of the plaintiffs, concluding that both proposed amendments were invalid and, according to the PLP constitution, unlawful.

She also ordered that the defendants provide a list of people who became party members between September 1, 2025 and August 31 to the plaintiffs’ lawyers by 4pm on November 13.

Mrs Justice Subair Williams also awarded the plaintiffs — listed in the case as Mr Dickinson, Sheila Maureen Brown, Jay-lee Maurice Smith, Winifred Rose Stevens and Shea-Tai Maurice Smith — costs “on a standard basis in respect of the trial of the originating summons”, but granted other costs that underpinned an earlier ruling to the defendants.

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