Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
GOVERNMENT HAS been slapped with another lawsuit challenging the Portmore leg of Highway 2000.
The application was filed yesterday in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Portmore Citizens Advisory Council and the Portmore Joint Citizens' Association.
The lawsuit is the second one to have hit the administration. The first was filed last month on behalf of five Portmore residents, including Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Councillors Natalie Campbell-Rodriques, Andrew Wheatley and Keith Blake.
Gifford, Thompson and Bright, the attorneys-at-law representing the council and the citizens' association, are seeking leave to apply for judicial review and leave to extend the time for applying to quash the Toll Roads Order of 2002, which was made by the Minister of Transport and Works in March 2002.
According to the firm, if leave is granted, the organisations would be entitled to proceed to a full hearing before the Supreme Court, at which they will ask the court for (a) an order quashing the minister's order in so far as it relates to the Portmore section of Highway 2000; (b) a declaration that the designation to the Mandela Highway as an alternative route is unlawful; (c) and an order prohibiting the minister from making a toll order in respect of the Portmore section.
COUNCIL, CITIZENS ARGUE
The council and the citizens' association are arguing that under the Toll Road Act, there must be an alternative route "in the area in which the toll road is to be established".
They also pointed out that the alternative route is in a quite different area, and is more than twice as long in distance. The Reverend Barrington Soares, chairman of the Portmore Citizens Advisory Council, and Carol McLean, public relations officer of the Portmore Citizens' Association, swore affidavits in support of the application.
In his affidavit, Rev. Soares said that when he heard in 2004 that the existing route across the causeway was being taken away, he found it "most strange, since my belief had been that when a toll road is built and operated between two places, the former non-toll road should be kept in existence for the use of those who cannot afford the toll, or choose not to pay, or who are not permitted on the toll road".
Ms. McLean also noted, "While residents were not opposed to a toll, they were opposed to the imposition of a toll with no acceptable alternative route."
