Senator Gregory Nicholls Rescinds Decision Against Praise Academy of Dance Over NCF Dispute

Senator Gregory Nicholls, the attorney who was arbiter for the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), has rescinded a decision against the Praise Academy of Dance, accepting that he made a mistake in correspondence with the cultural group two years ago.

The move could lead to a lawsuit against the NCF, the dance academy’s lawyers said yesterday.

The academy also confirmed yesterday that Nicholls, in a letter of correspondence, said he accepted that a fair-minded informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias in the matter.

Yesterday, Nicholls told the MIDWEEK NATION about his mistake.

“I made an error in my communication with the legal counsel for Praise Academy where I misstated the capacity in which I was responding to their letter. This was long after the arbitration decision was made and I sought to clear that up in subsequent correspondence,” he said.

“They have not accepted that it was a misstatement in my letter to them and as such I had no choice but to rescind the award and pave the way for the current arbiter or some other person chosen by NCF to make the determination in the matter,” he stated.

On November 17, 2023, the NCF confirmed that Nicholls had ruled against the academy in a complaint it brought against the cultural agency.

Disqualified

Praise Academy of Dance had entered two performances of the 2023 National Independence Festival of Creative Arts ( NIFCA) Performing Arts competition, one of which, Speak Life, was disqualified by the judges, who claimed the performance had exceeded “the bounds of good taste” and made “defamatory claims”.

Speak Life centred around a teenaged girl who was struggling with her gender, but who eventually found peace with her God.

The production, however, was disqualified by the NCF, and the academy filed a complaint with the arbiter, as allowed under NIFCA’s competition rules.

In the November 17 ruling, Nicholls said his decision was that “there is no basis to interfere with the prior decision of the judges of the entry Speak Life which was disqualified under rule 9B of the NIFCA rules”.

Attorney Davida Maynard-Holligan, who represents Praise Academy, said: “While we are encouraged that Senator Nicholls has withdrawn his ruling, the original ruling against the group remains in place and justice is being delayed.

“If we had not challenged and exposed what had happened to the group, there is no way that Senator Nicholls would have withdrawn his ruling. What he did, therefore, remains a highly concerning precedent which must never happen again on this island,” she noted.