A Jamaican Supreme Court justice has issued an interim court order on Monday blocking a ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor from spreading additional false and defamatory statements targeting the party’s own sitting Member of Parliament for Kingston Central, Donovan Williams.
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until July 13, when a judge is scheduled to review legal arguments from both sides and issue a more permanent ruling on the dispute. Confidential court documents related to the order were shared with the Jamaica Observer by an anonymous source close to the ongoing legal proceedings on the same day the injunction was granted.
The conflict stems from an internal party rift that erupted earlier this year between Williams and Rosalie Hamilton, the JLP councillor for Kingston’s Rae Town Division — a constituency area that falls entirely within Williams’s Kingston Central parliamentary riding. The falling out prompted Hamilton to level a series of damaging allegations against Williams in a series of voice recordings shared internally.
Hamilton has openly acknowledged sending the voice messages to a private JLP WhatsApp group for party members, but has maintained she never intended the recordings to leak to the public and spread widely across social media platforms. As tensions escalated, the councillor went as far as threatening to actively campaign against the JLP in upcoming parliamentary elections to ensure the party lost the Kingston Central seat.
Williams formally filed his request for an injunction through his legal counsel, attorney-at-law Rodain Richardson, on March 26, nearly three months before the court’s Monday ruling. The terms of the interim injunction are broad: it explicitly bars Hamilton from creating or distributing any false or defamatory content targeting Williams, across any platform — including social media sites, messaging apps like WhatsApp, and any other public or private communication channel.
Beyond blocking new statements, the court order also requires Hamilton, acting either personally or through any representatives or associates, to delete and retract all existing defamatory statements about Williams that have already been published or shared online. An additional supplementary order prohibits Hamilton and any connected parties from sharing any court documents, pleadings, evidence or other case-related materials on social media or any other public forum.
This public dispute first made headlines in late March, when the Jamaica Observer published a report titled “JLP councillor unshaken by demand letter from fellow Labourite.” That initial coverage detailed that Hamilton, a long-tenured JLP official, remained undeterred despite receiving a formal legal demand letter from Williams’s legal team ahead of the injunction filing, after the defamatory voice notes leaked to social media. When approached for comment by the Observer at that time, Hamilton declined to make any public statement on the demand letter.
Content from the leaked voice notes revealed the depth of Hamilton’s anger at Williams and the JLP. In one recording, she claimed party leadership was plotting to install a new candidate to challenge her in the upcoming JLP councillor nomination race for her seat. She rejected calls to participate in a party run-off vote, and threatened instead to run for re-election as an independent or on an alternate party ticket. “Everything is going in the media. You want a confrontation and me a go give you the confrontation. Mi a wait pon the right time,” she said in the recording.
In another voice message, she made clear her goal to remove Williams from his parliamentary post, saying: “Mi a go campaign mek you lose. Mi ‘affi get rid a you. You mi ‘affi get rid of, mi nah ask you dat.”
This is not the only legal action stemming from the inter-party feud: Hamilton has filed her own court action against Williams. Back in March, she submitted a cease and desist request to the court, claiming she feared for her personal safety and demanding that Williams stop all unsolicited contact with her. Williams has strongly denied ever making any unwanted contact with Hamilton, and has stated he will not be blocked from fulfilling his official duties as the elected Member of Parliament for Kingston Central.