NGOs to appeal High Court ruling on Todd Street land

Sev­er­al non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions are plan­ning to ap­peal a High Court de­ci­sion that gave Cab­i­net the green light to trans­fer a hectare of land to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).

On Ju­ly 4th, Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son held Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to trans­fer the land along Todd Street, San Fer­nan­do, to the HDC.

The HDC plans to con­struct a 72-unit hous­ing de­vel­op­ment com­plex on lands the Town & Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion had des­ig­nat­ed to on­ly be used to con­struct a school.

In 2022, the Kr­ish­na Mandir joined with sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions to chal­lenge Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to change the Town & Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion’s des­ig­na­tion of the land—from in­sti­tu­tion­al use to res­i­den­tial use.

But Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj says Jus­tice Wil­son erred in her rul­ing as prece­dence al­ready ex­ists.

“We are say­ing in our case to the Court that we recog­nise that the Cab­i­net has the pow­er un­der Sec­tion 75 to make pol­i­cy,” SC Ma­haraj ex­plained, “but Cab­i­net is not above the law and Cab­i­net is sub­ject to the law of the land.”

He added: “What we al­so say is that the courts of Trinidad and To­ba­go have al­ready de­cid­ed in prin­ci­ple what our case is.”

SC Ma­haraj ar­gues that Jus­tice Wil­son failed to ac­knowl­edge that Cab­i­net is sup­posed to con­sult with the claimants if it in­tends to change the use of the land.

He says while the judge found their claim pre­ma­ture, they have filed it now to nul­li­fy the pos­si­ble ar­gu­ment of their de­lay in fil­ing the ac­tion.

“I am to­tal­ly con­fi­dent. I have been in this law for over 50 years. I know when you have a good case and … I know when you have a case that is new law, and you do not know how the judge will de­cide,” he said.

“We have a case in which the prin­ci­ples of law have al­ready been de­cid­ed. But,” he points out, “some­times we have judges who take dif­fer­ent views.”

SC Ma­haraj said as far as he was con­cerned, the Cab­i­net may nev­er be able to change the land use be­cause his le­gal team can chal­lenge this de­ci­sion up to the Privy Coun­cil.