LAWYERS representing former resident magistrate Norma Von Cork yesterday filed an application for leave to challenge in the United Kingdom-based Privy Council her conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice by casting doubt on the 1995 drug smuggling convictions of Brian Bernal and Christopher Moore.

The application, which was accompanied by a request for bail, is scheduled to be heard on May 13, the date on which the local appellate court plans to deliver written reasons for its decision on Monday to dismiss the appeals of Von Cork and Radcliffe Orr, one of four men with whom she was convicted.

The appeal to the Privy Council, Jamaica’s highest legal authority, would be the last chance for Von Cork’s lawyers to save her from the one-year sentence that was imposed on her by Resident Magistrate Almarie Haynes in April 2000.

Haynes convicted Von Cork, McLean and two other men after finding them guilty of setting up Orr to take the blame for planting ganja in 96 tins disguised as pineapple juice.

The tins, which were found in 1994 in luggage belonging to Brian Bernal, son of Richard Bernal, Jamaica’s former ambassador to Washington, were destined for a fair in the United States in which Bernal’s mother had a hand. According to the case that public prosecutors led, the group had hoped to cast doubt on the validity of the Bernal/Moore convictions.

The lawyers listed in court documents yesterday four grounds of appeal which they described as issues of exceptional public interest.

In a nutshell, the lawyers want the English Law Lords to decide:

* if the charge listed on the indictment of Von Cork existed in law;

* if the allegations levelled against Von Cork constituted an offence;

* at what point in the legal process the course of public justice begins and ends; and

* if it is possible to pervert the course of justice by casting doubt on convictions.