GOVERNMENT THIS week won an important legal battle for the establishment of the Mandela Highway as an alternative route to the Portmore section of the Highway 2000 project. Citizens of Portmore had brought an action for judicial review of whether the Minister's designation of Mandela Highway as an alternative route was lawful, since, according to their arguments, it is not in the same 'area'.The judge in taking a pragmatic view of the dispute held that each situation must be assessed on its own merits and came to the conclusion that the Minister, in all the circumstances, had acted reasonably. She avoided getting bogged down in the semantics of the meaning of 'in the area' and, on balance we believe that the decision is a correct one. The judgement is subject to appeal but we believe a better course is for the parties to continue negotiating the specifics of how far the Government can go in satisfying the concerns of the Portmore citizens.
Portmore citizens are a significant voting block in political terms and the administration, having won the legal battle, has every reason to be magnanimous in making concessions. It has already signalled this approach by waiving legal costs awarded in its favour, thus saving the Portmore Citizens Advisory Council and the Portmore Joint Citizens Association some of the total costs in bringing the suit.
An important outstanding matter to be considered is how to ensure that there are no intolerable traffic jams on the Mandela Highway as a result of its use by Portmore residents. The Government has contracted a leading firm of international traffic engineers to assess the problem and we think this is a step in the right direction.
Another outstanding matter is the amount of the toll which residents of Portmore will have to pay to use the new highway on their week-long journeys to and from Kingston if they choose this route. If some compromise can be worked out on this without violating the Government's obligations under its concession with the French company building the highway, this contentious matter can perhaps be settled once and for all.
