State attorneys in the Highway Re-route Movement (HRM)’s ongoing civil lawsuit challenging the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the Point Fortin Highway have applied to have “irrelevant” aspects of the group’s evidence removed from the case. The lawyers along with those for the HRM met before High Court judge James Aboud at the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain, yesterday morning as the group’s leader Dr Wayne Kublalsingh marked the 24th day of his hunger strike in protest of the project.
Presenting the application, Deborah Peake, SC, claimed the contentious aspects of evidence from Kublalsingh, some of the group’s members and its foreign expert witnesses should be struck out as the issues raised were not mentioned when the group filed its constitutional motion almost two years ago.
The main issue highlighted by Peake was the HRM’s opposition of an Environmental Impact Assessment report for the billion-dollar project prepared in 2009 and the Environmental Management Authority’s decision to grant the Government a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) in 2010. “The fact is the CEC was granted. They (the HRM) maybe unhappy about it but the time to record your dissent was during public consultations,” Peake said.
Peake also took issue with an affidavit from a marine ecologist based in Washington DC, which the group is using to prove its case that a comprehensive technical review of the project should have been done prior to construction.“There is no evidence that this lady has touched the soil of T&T, but she is talking about property value along the Solomon Hochoy Highway,” Peake said.
As she continued to accuse the HRM of refering to external issues which it had failed to raise during the over two-year-old lawsuit, Peake suggested that the group’s action was slowing the pace of the case. “Why are you (Aboud) being burdened with all these technical issues when it is not necessary or relevant,” Peake said. The State’s application was filed in June, last year, during a case management conference held to clarify evidential issues to facilitate the eagerly awaited trial of the case.
However, timelines for the application and the substantive case were derailed after the group filed for an injunction stopping the project after it claimed that the Government has intensified its construction work. The HRM is currently due to take its injunction battle to the Privy Council, after it was blanked by both Aboud and the local Court of Appeal.
In a bid to convince Kublalsingh to end his hunger strike, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, on Thursday, agreed to ask the British court for an expedited hearing, when the appeal is eventually filed. Aboud is expected to give his ruling on the State’s application on October 31.
Background
In their constitutional motion filed on August 3, 2012, the group is contending that the Government contravened its constitutional rights to “life, security, enjoyment of property, to freedom of expression and freedom of association” by building the highway without consulting them properly. However, the group says it is not opposed to the entire highway extension project but only a specific segment.
As a secondary issue, the group is seeking a declaration that the alleged actions of former National Security Minister Jack Warner and a group of soldiers in destroying their Debe protest camp and arresting Kublalsingh and some of the group’s members on June 27, 2012, were illegal.
They also claim they have a legitimate expectation that the Government would abide by the findings of a study done by the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC) led by former Independent Senator Dr James Armstrong.