Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT scored a major victory yesterday when the Court of Appeal threw out the constitutional challenge to the imposition of a toll on the Portmore leg of Highway 2000.
Some Portmore residents, including four Jamaica Labour Party Councillors, had appealed against a Constitutional Court ruling last year.
The constitutional motion was the second challenge to the toll road. Last July, Miss Justice Gloria Smith, sitting in the Judicial Review Court, dismissed a motion brought by the Portmore Citizens Advisory Council and the Portmore Joint Citizens Association seeking an order to quash the Minister's order designating the toll road. The ruling was not appealed.
The Court of Appeal, comprising Mr. Justice Seymour Panton, Mr. Justice Howard Cooke and Mrs. Justice Zaila McCalla, in handing down the unanimous decision yesterday, said there were no constitutional breaches in relation to the toll road. The written reasons will be given at a later date.
The appellants were not ordered to pay the Government's legal costs because the court said the appeal was not frivolous and vexatious.
GENUINE CAUSE FOR CONCERN
The judges said further that the appellants had a genuine cause for concern and, therefore, genuine challenges to prevent constitutional breaches should not be discouraged because of legal costs.
Attorney-at-law Oswald James, who represents the appellants, said they were taking the case to the United Kingdom Privy Council.
Mr. James had argued last month in the Court of Appeal that the toll amounted to compulsory acquisition of property. He said the toll was a breach of the residents' constitutional rights.
Solicitor General Michael Hylton, Q.C., argued that the case seemed to be based on a misunderstanding of what the Constitution protected. He said section 18 of the Constitution protected citizens from having their property taken away without compensation. He said that, in the appellants' case, no property was being taken away and the appellants did not own the Causeway main road or bridge.
Mr. Hylton asked the court to throw out the case because the evidence clearly showed that the alternative route (via the Mandela Highway) was a reasonable alternative. He described the case as one which was "factually without justification and legally without merit."
