New legal action attempts to enforce wall ruling
It’s the legal dispute that refuses to die … and today lawyers for the Brown Sugar and Harbourview companies were in the Supreme Court seeking the enforcement of a ruling that they thought they had already won. News Five’s Janelle Chanona has the latest twist in the case known appropriately as “the wall”.
Fred Lumor, Attorney, Brown Sugar/Habourview Companies
“I just want to tell the multi-national companies operating from the Tourism Village that they are not above the law and they’ll soon find out why.”
James Nisbet, FSTV Operations Manager
“I totally totally agree with him, there is absolutely no one that is above the law but I do believe that Mr. Lumor should stick to what he knows when it comes to law and don’t argue things that are a bit outside of his scope.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning attorney Fred Lumor secured an injunction, barring the Fort Street Tourism Village from any additional destruction of the boardwalk and a separate order that prevents the Belize Port Authority from decertifying the Village as a port of entry for cruise passengers. The Chief Justice has also granted the attorney a hearing on May fifteenth when Lumor will argue that F.S.T.V.’s Operations Manager James Nisbet, Security Chief John Mulligan, Ports Commissioner Major Lloyd Jones and Port Authority Employees Kenrick Daly and Andrew Coc as well as Attorney General Sedi Elrington and Minister of Natural Resources Gaspar Vega should be sent to jail for Contempt of Court.
The drastic action follows the events of April twenty-third when just hours after Justice John Muria upheld the CJ’s order that the walls along the boardwalk had to come down, the F.S.T.V., under the supervision of the Port Authority, proceeded to remove not only the obstructions, but also the dock, effectively barring pedestrian traffic.
Fred Lumor
“Nobody is above the law, not even the rich and not even the low so I wish that we didn’t come to this point. Being here, they have to ask themselves why, not me.”
Janelle Chanona
“Now I know lawyers have a way of using words. Do you think there’s any sort of argument that the loophole in this is that the court order was to remove obstructions and it did not specifically address the boardwalk itself?”
Fred Lumor
“Well if they are interpreting the court order that way, they will have the opportunity to explain it to the court, I will not help him. They will come to court and say well we comply with the order, we are not in contempt so don’t punish us. It’s as simple as that.”
In March Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh ordered that obstructions and obstacles along the boardwalk had to be removed because it denied property owners adjacent to the Village their constitutionally protected rights to make a living. But today Nisbet maintained that he has complied with that order and simply chose to make alterations to the boardwalk, which he says is F.S.T.V. property, at the same time.
James Nisbet
“We honestly believe that we have acted in the best interest of the industry and everybody has an opinion and they are entitled to that. I’m not going to get into a he said, she said battle about whether it is it’s that’s going to happen, or decertification is imminent. No, I have been running a port for the last six years. Neither of my neighbours have ever ran a port, they don’t realise the ramifications, the seriousness of the ramifications of actions such as what they are asking me to do. I don’t ever want to have to get on camera or on a phone call and do an interview and say see I told you so, we were decertified, now what? How do we find recourse? I simply don’t have that luxury. I cannot and will not just gamble with people’s livelihood like that; I cannot.”
As for the restraining order against any possible de-certification of the Port, Nisbet says….
James Nisbet
“That in its core is ridiculous. You cannot tell an officer of the country to do his job and then have the court instruct him not to do his job. That’s a fundamentally problem of where this whole case had started and I think it is right now.”
Fred Lumor
“Nobody can decertify the port, not from today.”
Janelle Chanona
“I have a funny feeling they’ll say but the court can’t order that because the court is not in a position to say what warrants a port being a port.”
Fred Lumor
“I wish them good luck if they say that. Because I tell you the truth, if they stay they will not obey an injunction given by the court, I can’t help them.”
In granting the injunction this morning, the Chief Justice maintained that he was very “disturbed” by the removal of the boardwalk along the Tourism Village, an action he referred to as “intolerable behaviour” and very much like “cutting your nose to spite your face”. The committal hearing will be argued before the CJ on May fifteenth. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona
In related news, this afternoon F.S.T.V.’s Nisbet informed us that during a visit next week by members of the United States Coast Guard, a team will conduct an inspection of the Village as a secure port of entry for cruise passengers.
