DELROY Chuck did not show for last night’s meeting of Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentarians despite the fact that it was called at his request.

Dr Andrew Wheatley, the Opposition party’s deputy general secretary and representative for St Catherine South Central, emerged briefly from the meeting at JLP headquarters on Belmont Road in St Andrew to tell the Jamaica Observer that neither Chuck nor Gregory Mair were in attendance.

On Sunday, Chuck wrote to Derrick Smith, Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, requesting an urgent meeting of the party’s MPs to discuss last Friday’s Constitutional Court declaration in the Senate resignation letters saga.

Chuck said that, after reading the judgements in the case, he believed “the matter to be of urgent national importance” and as such was urging his parliamentary colleagues to read them.

“In the Westminster System of Government, any constitutional office holder — be it Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Speaker of the House, Chief Justice, or others — who the court rules or declares to act unlawfully and unconstitutionally would be obliged, in all good conscience and honour, to tender his or her resignation, unless there are good and compelling reasons not to do so,” Chuck said.

“I ask that you call an urgent meeting of all Opposition MPs to consider the matter,” he added.

The Constitutional Court had declared that Opposition Leader Andrew Holness’s request for pre-signed and undated resignation letters from persons to be appointed Opposition Senators, and his use of those letters to oust Arthur Williams and Dr Christopher Tufton were “inconsistent with the Constitution, contrary to public policy, unlawful, and accordingly, null and void”.

The Court made the declaration on a claim filed by Williams after he and Tufton were ousted from the Senate in November 2013 following the acrimonious leadership race for the JLP that pitted Audley Shaw against Holness.

Chuck had supported Shaw in that contest.

On Monday, Smith called the meeting, saying that it would be used to “fully brief” the MPs on the advice received by the party on the judgement, and not to make a decision on Holness’s future.

Last Night, Wheatley said he could not say any more about the discussions in the meeting, which, up to 10:30, was still in progress.

Following just over four hours of consultations between the MPs and the party’s legal team, nothing new had emerged.

“There is really nothing to report,” said controversial MP Daryl Vaz, considered one of the MPs opposed to Holness’s leadership style.

Smith concurred, saying that the basic issue was, as he had indicated, to inform the MPs on the party’s legal position on the court issue.