Landy Habet Discusses the Latest on Appeals Tribunal
On Friday, we reported that a claim had been filed against the Minister of Sustainable Development in the High Court on behalf of Waterloo Holdings. This is in respect of the appeals tribunal that was constituted following an amendment to the existing Environmental Impact Assessment regulations. We also established that one of the panelists on that tribunal, local tourism pioneer Lucy Fleming, has chosen not to participate in the appeal process. Earlier today, Minister of Sustainable Development Orlando Habet spoke one-on-one with News Five regarding the latest turn of events, as well as the possible legal outcomes.
Isani Cayetano
“We confirmed on Friday that Lucy Fleming, who was one of three persons to sit on that panel, has chosen not to participate in this particular process going forward. Can you speak to us [about] what happens at this juncture, in respect of the overall appeals position?”
Orlando ‘Landy’ Habet
Orlando ‘Landy’ Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
“Yes, certainly. As you know, the company had appealed the decision of the Department of the Environment and so what happens when that appeal occurs is that we have to invoke the tribunal which is comprised of one judge which we already have. We have to get a person that represents the private sector, in this case we have the senator who had to be removed because of potential conflict of interest and through the consultation process, we had engaged in some conversation with Mrs. Lucy Fleming, a person who had been in the private sector for some time, engaged with the tourism industry and so we thought that she would have been one of the best persons to be part of that tribunal and the third person being Professor Hughes who is out of Ireland originally, but has been doing work in the Caribbean and also in Australia. The fact that Mrs. Lucy has written saying that she can‘t continue or doesn‘t want to continue into the tribunal is something that we have to respect. We will have to now engage and see from the persons that are out there, who else we can get to be part of that tribunal. But certainly, not to delve further into the issue because this is something that has to appear before the tribunal which is still part of the court process. We see from here now that even when we do further amendments to the legislation that these things have to be taken into consideration that somebody can pull out, something can happen and somebody can get sick. So there has to be in that legislation time allotted so that sufficient time actually, so that then you can accommodate some of these changes that can happen without your really being involved or not knowing what these things can, things like these that can happen. So I think that having sufficient time put in there that that would be very, very important.”
