Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court will have the fi­nal say in an ap­peal over a de­ci­sion by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sion to is­sue de­c­la­ra­tions against a prop­er­ty de­vel­op­er and or­der it to pay com­pen­sa­tion for de­vel­op­ing a prop­er­ty in Las Cuevas with­out first ob­tain­ing a cer­tifi­cate of en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance (CEC).

In March, Ap­pel­late Judges Mark Mo­hammed, Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar and Maria Wil­son up­held the find­ings made by the com­mis­sion in re­la­tion to George Aboud and Sons Ltd and Las Cuevas Prop­er­ties Ltd.

A no­tice pub­lished on the Privy Coun­cil’s web­site last week in­di­cat­ed that both com­pa­nies have filed a fi­nal ap­peal over the out­come.

A hear­ing date for the ap­peal is yet to be set by the Unit­ed King­dom-based court. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, in 2004 the com­pa­nies suc­cess­ful­ly ob­tained a CEC for a de­vel­op­ment, but it lapsed af­ter three years be­fore work be­gan on the site. 

An­oth­er ap­pli­ca­tion for a CEC was made in 2014 but was even­tu­al­ly with­drawn in 2019. 

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) re­ceived no­tice that en­vi­ron­men­tal group Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea had filed a di­rect pri­vate par­ty ac­tion over the de­vel­op­ment. 

The EMA sought an in­junc­tion against the com­pa­nies as it al­leged that it en­gaged in work, in­clud­ing des­ig­nat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties with­out a valid CEC. 

The com­mis­sion re­fused the in­junc­tion as it not­ed that there was no longer a con­tin­u­ing vi­o­la­tion with re­spect to in­com­plete ac­tiv­i­ty in progress which could be re­strained. 

How­ev­er, it de­clared that the com­pa­nies had breached the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act by con­duct­ing des­ig­nat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty with­out a CEC and or­dered the EMA to make an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sess­ment of com­pen­sa­tion for such. 

Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar, who wrote the pan­el’s judg­ment, stat­ed that the com­mis­sion did have the pow­er un­der the leg­is­la­tion to or­der the as­sess­ment. 

He al­so ruled that the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to is­sue a de­c­la­ra­tion could not be fault­ed even if it did not have the ex­pressed pow­er to do so. He added that the com­mis­sion’s find­ings on the des­ig­nat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty could not be in­val­i­dat­ed based on the ev­i­dence. 

Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar al­so re­ject­ed the com­pa­nies’ com­plaints over be­ing or­dered to pay the EMA’s le­gal costs for the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion.

The com­pa­nies were rep­re­sent­ed by Navin­dra Ram­nanan, while the au­thor­i­ty was un­rep­re­sent­ed be­fore the Court of Ap­peal.