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Court to rule on issue of jurisdiction in Red House matter
Court is expected to rule over issue of
jurisdiction in Red House legal challenge
The Court is expected to rule on the issue of jurisdiction in the Red House legal challenge.
Subsequent to the laying over of further submissions by Attorney General, (AG) Basil Williams as it relates to jurisdiction of the High Court in the legal challenge over the Red House yesterday, a date was set for a ruling on the issue.
The AG and Attorney- at –law, Anil Nandlall, appeared before Chief Justice, (Ag) Yonette Cummings- Edwards at the High Court in Georgetown.
Following, a brief in-Chamber hearing, the matter was adjourned to March 24 in which a ruling will be handed down on the issue of jurisdiction in the case.
Red House has been the subject of a court matter since December 2015. The PPP/C had moved to the High Court to bar the revocation of a lease and the removal of artifacts from Red House, a national heritage site.
The move came after President David Granger ordered that the lease to the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Incorporated (CJRCI) be revoked and that the occupants vacate the property by December 31, 2016.
The Red House lease was granted by the then PPP/C government to Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Incorporated (CJRCI), a company formed by the members of the same party.
However according to information obtained by the current government, on March 30, 2012 the Red House lease agreement was initiated without the approval of either the President of the day or The National Trust of Guyana, in contravention of Section 10 of the Lands Department Act Chapter 59:01.
In his preliminary arguments, the AG submitted that the Court’s first duty is to determine whether it has the jurisdiction to proceed with hearing the matter.
The Attorney General contended that the Chief Justice had no Jurisdiction to proceed with the matter for a number of reasons.
One of the reasons the AG contended is that an applicant for the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Inc. (CJRCI), who goes ex-parte to the Court, has a duty to be candid with the Court and to make full and frank disclosures of material facts within his knowledge.
Failure to do so entitles the Court to discharge any order made and refuse to deal with the merits of the matter.
The Attorney General therefore submitted that the Applicant, the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Inc. (CJRCI) failed to make full and frank disclosures of material facts in its ex parte Application by way of Affidavit for Conservatory Orders when it concealed from the Court that President Ramotar sanctioned/ approved of the lease in 2012; that the lease being 99 years was not executed in the manner of a transport before the Court e.g was not published in the official Gazette; the lease was not filed as record in the Registry and annotated and Red House was a National Monument under the National Trust Act Chapter 20:03.
Williams submitted that the omission to execute the contract in the manner of a transport before the Court and file it as of record in the Registry was fatal, since under the Deeds Registry Act Chapter 5:01 such a lease was invalid, ineffectual and could not be pleaded in a Court of Law.
Nandlall, nonetheless described the points made by the AG at this stage of the trial as “deeply flawed” and “premature.”
He said that while the AG was intended to address the Court on matters of jurisdiction, his arguments were based on whether or not the case has merit.
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