Haylock Bus Takes Belize City Council to Court Over Belama Bus Route
An application for judicial review filed by Attorney Godwin Haylock for Haylock Bus Service Limited was rejected today by Justice Shona Griffith. Haylock Bus Service claims that the Belize City Council ‘usurped the law’ after it reportedly granted another bus company road service permit to transport people from the Pound Yard Bridge to Belama in Belize City. Haylock Bus contends that it is the only company with a valid permit to make those runs. The company says that the City Council has no authority to grant any other bus company a permit and that responsibility falls on the Transport Board, a party which was not included in the application. It is for this reason that Justice Griffith rejected the application, instructing Haylock to amend the application.
Godwin Haylock
Godwin Haylock, Attorney for Haylock Bus Service Ltd.
“Judicial Review is the route I chose to go with the matter because it is the first time we saw the decision from the Belize City Council saying that ‘we can give out a road service permit’. As far as we know we have not seen presenting anything what amounts to be permission from the City Council to carry passengers. So the judicial review of that matter is really to say that you can’t change the decision of the council but just check it that it is procedural correct. That they are allowed because as you know the Belize City Council as you know is a creature of statute that they are allowed to pass such permission and what in my view is circumventing the transport board.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Is it more for Haylock Bus Service to have a monopoly on that route other than just the city council, as you say, did not follow the proper procedures?”
Godwin Haylock
“Haylock Bus Service really does not have any thoughts of a monopoly. The company is really owned by my father. He’s been operating there for more than eight years now. I would say that the reason he opted to go for a judicial review is because you can’t allow a city council to just determine without follow the judicial process, the process of the transport board really, that I must first apply, have a gazette that I am applying for the road service permit. That is there are concerns, there is a meeting at the transport board. It really circumvents the entire law if you just allow with a stroke of a pen a city council to write anyone to become a person to compete with you on a route.”
The matter was adjourned to September eighteen.
