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AG asking court to impose higher cost to prevent citizens from filing frivolous oil-related cases
Kaieteur News – Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall SC is asking the High Court to impose higher cost to prevent citizens from filing frivolous cases related to the oil sector.
The AG was at the time speaking of cases filed by private citizens in relation to ExxonMobil Guyana Limited operations which were eventually dismissed. Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George threw out a case filed by three women activists against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which sought to halt the flaring of gas offshore by ExxonMobil. She found that the application lacked evidence and merit and was one of several cases brought by litigants with similar intentions. The respondents were ordered to pay EPA $150,000 in costs. During a recent airing of his programme, ‘Issues in the News’ Nandlall described the matter as ‘frivolous ad vexatious.’
According to the AG, such cases are wasting valuable judicial resources. He therefore called on the court to implement measures which would dissuade individuals from bringing such matters to the court. He expressed his deep concern about individuals filing abusive cases that, in the end, prove to be without merit.
He explained: “That case is one in a series of cases… there are others involving Vanda Radzik, Danuta Radzik, Troy Thomas almost all of them expect the unlimited guarantee case have been struck out. Today the CJ ruled that the evidence presented did not have any relevance to the case that the case didn’t have any merit….that a case was not made that it was not only hopeless but hopelessly present…Her honour dismissed the case but she awarded $150,000 cost .” “These litigants go on the internet, they pull down a whole set of information about the environment, pages and pages of documents, half of which are irrelevant and 99 per cent of which are inadmissible as evidence because the maker of those documents is not before the court,” Nandlall added.
Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall SC
The AG noted too that his concerns were not unfounded, as Guyana had recently witnessed several legal challenges where politicians challenged the State and citizens brought cases against state agencies on environmental issues. He lamented on the impact that such matters have on the State resources.
According to Nandlall, “Billions of dollars are being spent annually to resource the judiciary. Millions of dollars is expended in hearing and determining these cases. The State through resources to the judiciary expends millions and millions of dollars to hear and determine one of these cases,” the AG said adding that “The state is invariably sued through one of its arms and agencies, lawyers have to be hired, time has to be consumed and research has to be done only for the matters and in the end the cases make no sense and the only for the cases to be dismissed as frivolous and vexatious, and without merit.”
As such, the AG stated that the courts need to take a more proactive stance in discouraging frivolous litigation by awarding appropriate orders for costs when dismissing such cases. He lamented that while he is not against public-spirited citizens filing cases, there must be a balanced approach to litigation, where genuine cases are heard without impediment and frivolous cases are discouraged through appropriate legal measures.
“I am not against public spirited citizens filing cases that are important part of democracy, that civic duty but again the cases must be just. They cases can’t be fishing expeditions…” he said. The Attorney General continued: “we have an already overworked judicial system that is nationally recognised. We have people with genuine cases involving their properties, freedoms, and families. Cases that put people’s lives on hold and those cases remain languishing in the system.”
The AG stressed therefore that when challenges had been dismissed as lacking merit, substantial costs had been awarded to the respondents. “I believe that these cases are of the same mould but all I am asking for is that when these cases are dismissed, the court must express [its] displeasure. It must send a message that it will not allow its processes to be used in this frivolous manner. It costs a lot of money to hear and determine one of these cases,” the AG stressed.
- Application, Attorney General (AG), ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, High Court, Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall SC
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