THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has scoffed at the announcement by Prime Minister Andrew Holness that he has instructed his attorneys to file action against senior members of the party who he said defamed him at a mid-morning news conference on Thursday.

In a response on Friday, a defiant PNP’s legal advisor, attorney-at-law Anthony Hylton, indicated that the Opposition would not be silenced by the threat of lawsuits.

“The People’s National Party will continue to promote and defend the rights of the Jamaican people to good governance, transparency and probity in public life. The threat of legal action will neither deter nor distract from that mission,” said Hylton.

“The spectre of a frivolous lawsuit will not stop the party from carrying out its representational duties and its constitutional responsibilities as the Opposition,” added Hylton.

In a news release on Thursday, Government Senator Abka Fitz-Henley confirmed the prime minister’s instructions to his legal team at the law firm Henlin Gibson Henlin.

“Should they not take the appropriate action, lawsuits will be filed against the PNP members who made the false statements and without any credible basis defamed the prime minister concerning the question of when he came into awareness of an illicit enrichment probe,” the release quoted Senator Fitz-Henley, who is also a member of the governing Jamaica Labour Party’s communication task force.

And Fitz-Henley, in response to Hylton’s release Friday, said, “It is unbecoming for Tony Hylton to describe the prime minister move to protect his reputation as frivolous. This after the PNP made unwise, untrue and derogatory comments about him in a broadcast which was aired on a national media platform. Mr Hylton will see what he shall see”, Fitz-Henley said.

“This though is consistent with the nature of the PNP over the years. They are accustomed to launching unbecoming attacks and making untrue statements about Jamaica Labour Party leaders but they will not get away with it concerning the Most Honourable Andrew Michael Holness. You know, the prime minister has been busy governing Jamaica, just yesterday he handed out more houses to Jamaicans in need via a programme he conceptualized. So we will not seek to debate pending litigation with Mr Hylton in the public domain,” Fitz-Henley said.

The Government senator says the next time the PNP hears from the JLP or Holness’s representatives on this matter will be via legal correspondence and should they not “adopt a contrite posture public concerning some of the vile and untrue adjectives used to allude to the Prime Minister”, they will have to explain themselves to the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.

During the press conference on Thursday, PNP President Mark Golding, Opposition spokeswoman on justice Senator Donna Scott-Mottley, and former Cabinet member KD Knight repeated the PNP’s call for Holness to resign in the wake of the report.

Both Golding and Scott-Mottley charged that Holness knew that he was being investigated by the IC for illicit enrichment when he told the country that none of the members of his party were under such probe.

However, Fitz-Henley insisted that Holness spoke the truth when he indicated to the media on August 17, 2023 that he was not aware of any member of the Jamaica Labour Party being written to by the IC with an indication that they are under investigation for illicit enrichment.