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A patron perched on a railing enjoys the music at a fete. File photo/David Reid

THE COURT of Appeal has been asked to overturn a judge’s ruling that the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) and the police do not have the power to shut down events or fetes because of noise levels.

In submissions before Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Prakash Moosai and Gillian Lucky on Friday, the EMA’s lead attorney, Kelvin Ramkissoon, insisted the finding of the High Court on the powers of the EMA was wrong and perverse.

The judges have reserved their decision.

The EMA has appealed the June 2021 ruling of Justice Margaret Mohammed in the judicial review claim of fete promoter, Wild Goose Ltd, against the EMA and Snr Supt Garth Nelson for shutting down its Tailgate Carnival event at the Queen’s Park Savannah on February 26, 2019, two hours early for breaches to noise levels.

It was alleged that the event was exceeding decibel levels set in a noise variation granted to Wild Goose for the event. The noise variation allowed the promoters to play music at 85 decibels from 6-8 pm and 75 decibels from 8 pm-2 am.

It was alleged that the decibel levels fluctuated during the night and several warnings were given before the event was shut down.

Mohammed ruled in favour of Wild Goose, holding that the EMA did not have the power to shut down the event since the Environmental Management Act set out the procedure for dealing with noise variation violations which included issuing a written warning and obtaining an injunction.

However, Ramkissoon contended the act, under section 68(c), gave the EMA wider implied powers “to take steps under any other law.”

He pointed the judges to the relevant sections of the Summary Courts Act, the Police Service Act and the common law as it deals with breaches of the peace and public nuisances.

Ramkissoon said the judge conflated the shutting down of the sound with the shutting down of the event when the EMA did not stop the fete, but the source of the “noise pollution.”

He said the police could have independently stopped the fete because of a “breach of the peace” which allegedly resulted from an announcement made on the public address (PA) system which resulted in officers of the authority’s Environmental Protection Unit being cursed at by patrons leaving the event.

Ramkissoon insisted the noise pollution rules gave an implied power to shut down the source of the “pollutant” while the common law provided protection against nuisances. He said the judge’s analysis of the law and the evidence was “regrettable.”

In response to a suggestion by one of the judges that, perhaps, in the long run, it would be best for Parliament to review the existing legislation as it relates to noise pollution, Ramkissoon said Parliament cannot legislate every conceivable scenario.

“Do we need to write in the law that which is the law?”

He added, “There is a remedy (inferential/implied powers) to stop the music when there is the belief a nuisance is committed…You have immediate abatement powers as law enforcement.

“There is a duty to abate a nuisance.”

That power, he said, was an axiomatic power.

In response to the appeal, attorney Christopher Rodriguez, who represents Wild Goose, said the EMA and the police failed to provide evidence of a public nuisance in keeping with the standards of “reasonable doubt” required to support a criminal offence. He said that even if the powers of the Summary Courts Act and the Police Service Act were “swept in” under section 68(c), there was no evidence of a public nuisance or a breach of the peace.

He, too, suggested going back to Parliament to amend the laws to give the EMA the “amplified powers” to shut down any fete or event in TT.

“They do not currently possess that power and that is what (the judge) found. The judge pointed out there was a comprehensive code for breaches of environmental requirements and penal sanctions…Parliament has not prescribed the power to take immediate enforcement action,” he said.

“To overturn this finding, they (the EMA) would have to show the judge was plainly wrong. The judge went through the evidence thoroughly.

“There was no breach of the peace. This was not a case of breach of the peace but a breach of a noise variation.

“The court correctly identified the comprehensive scheme of the legislation…The legislation gave the EMA a lot of powers but not the particular power that they wanted (to shut down the event.)”

Rodriguez warned the court not to “invent enforcement powers and give it to the authority.”

“There are issues to be dealt with regarding noise and how society deals with noise but that is best left for the legislature as to how the industry and the economy work with the environment.

“Do not read into legislation that which is not there.”

In her ruling, Mohammed ordered the EMA and Nelson to pay $30,000 in vindicatory damages to “register the court’s strong disapproval of the defendant’s decision to shut down an event in circumstances where there was no expressed or implied authority to do so.”

Ramkissoon said the promoter had accepted it violated the noise variation and had paid a $10,000 fine so the judge should have refused the declarations she granted and the award of vindicatory damages.

Also appearing for the EMA was Rhea Robinson while Wild Goose was also represented by Rhyjell Ellis and Joash Huggins.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Lionfish Project to be Subject of Documentary

 Antigua will host  the first Antigua Open Lionfish Tournament on November 18th-20th, 2022. Co-sponsored by Elkhorn Marine Conservancy  (EMC) (https://www.emcantigua.org) and Lionfish University (https://lionfishuniversity.org), the tournament will be capped with a festival in Nelson’s Dockyard on November 20th from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.

UK based filmmaker Dean Arnett has announced that he will document the upcoming Antigua Open Lionfish Tournament.  Arnett, formerly with the BBC, is an international award winning, self-shoot producer, video consultant and media trainer.

He has over 30 years experience in production, including a long BBC career, mixed with international training and production for broadcasters and corporate clients including some of the world’s biggest brands.

Mr. Arnett has filmed and produced documentaries all over the world, most notably for the BBC and Discovery. His documentaries are usually character-led films, notoriously centered around the human condition, no matter what the subject. He also does corporate video, music videos, media training and designs story-telling narratives and campaigns.

Mr. Arnett will produce the documentary supported by the tournament organizers, the Galleon Foundation, Karen Mae Hill from the Antigua High Commission in London and Government House.

The Antigua Open Lionfish Tournament is co-sponsored by Elkhorn Marine Conservancy and Lionfish University, and is made possible by the generous support of the Ministry of Tourism and the Honorable Minister Max Fernandez, Mill Reef Club as a platinum sponsor, Elite Island Resorts as a silver sponsor, and other island stakeholders, including the National Parks Authority, Fisheries, Coast Guard, local media, dive shops, fishermen, and others.

To register for the tournament, visit https://antigualionfish.com, and for more information contact [email protected].

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Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds.

AS people across the country continue to express shock and outrage over primary schoolchildren having to hide under their desks during a nearby shoot-out, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds alleged the gunmen were 200 metres away from the school whose pupils were “not ever at peril of any physical danger.”

However, NTA head Gary Griffith, a former commissioner of police, sharply chided Hinds for his remarks, saying assault rifles can fire 35 bullets within seconds and kill anyone within 400 metres.

On Monday, gunmen from Argyle Street, Gonzales, tried entering Richardson Lane, Laventille, which led to a ten-minute shoot-out between rival gangs. No one was hurt or killed.

Videos of students of the Rose Hill RC Primary School being told by teachers to take cover during the gunfight went viral on social media. The school will reopen on Wednesday.

In a Facebook post, Hinds said the video was “quite misleading,” a claim he repeated in a statement in the House of Representatives on Friday.

He said some people seemed to have thought the gunmen were on the school grounds.

“They were not! In fact, the actual shooting took place about 200m away.”

Hinds said he only became aware of the video on Wednesday.

“The school administration made it quite clear that the children were not ever, from that incident, at peril of any physical danger.

“It was the trauma and fear that gripped them all.”

He said such incidents happen so often that the school authorities have pupils trained to get down whenever gunshots were heard.

“Chances are that depending on where they live, very unfortunately, they may have experienced this at home as well.”

He recalled his talks with residents on his recent visit to the school and community.

“I called on the young men, who are used as blind and misguided gophers by the gang leaders, to think about their futures and that of the children in their one families and communities.”

Griffith said Hinds’ remarks displayed his “irresponsibility and ignorance of firearms.”

Saying the children were rightfully placed to lie flat on the ground during hostile gunfire, Griffith said Hinds was “totally out of his depth” in his role to secure TT, while those advising him were “just as reckless, if not clueless in the field of security.”

He said Hinds’ remarks set “a dangerous precedent” of a minister giving improper information.

Griffith, a former Defence Force captain, said, “For clarification to the public, the effective range of a 5.56 cartridge in an automatic weapon exceeds over 400 metres.

“This means that if an innocent bystander is standing 400 metres away from where the shot was fired, and a stray round bypasses who it was intended for, such a round can easily kill that innocent citizen, including a child, on impact, hence the necessity for that teacher to correctly have them lie on the ground to make them less of a target and victim from such a stray round.”

Viewing Hinds’ remarks as “reckless and incorrect” and likely to put other citizens at risk.

“His comments, apart from being incorrect, are also insensitive and disingenuous, in addressing a clear and present danger of increasing gang warfare that uses assault weapons.”

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Black Immigrant Daily News

At least 700 Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) residents have benefitted from low-income and moderate-income lots within the Shieldstown Housing Scheme. The house lots were allocated during the second “Dream Realised” housing drive in the region for the year.

The first, which was held earlier in the year, saw at least 400 persons receiving house lots. On Friday, hundreds of persons flocked to the Shieldstown Cricket Ground where they had the opportunity to pull the number for their lots.

A resident selecting his lot number

Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodrigues stated that the land that is being developed was acquired by the Ministry back in May 2021.

“Several months later, we are here to allocate 700 house lots to you the residents… this speaks to the expediency in which we are working; this demonstrates the commitment of the Ministry to reaching its target of distributing 50,000 house lots by 2025.”

Rodrigues added that Region Five compared to other regions does not have a huge backlog and as such, by 2025, every single application will be dealt with.

“From 2020 to now, we have spent over $800 million on new infrastructure, upgrading existing housing schemes in Experiment, upgrading roads in Bath… we are also expending monies to develop the new site for the hospital, so we have been very active in this region.

In addition, Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal added that the initiative on Friday is the 6th for the year thus far and it shows the commitment of the Ministry and to an extent the Government.

Housing Ministers Collin Croal and Susan Rodrigues with a resident receiving his land title on Friday

“Since we are in office, we are close to the 18,000 allocation mark and that is a significant number. It signals what a PPP/C Government means to the people of Guyana and when you have a youthful President as Dr Irfaan Ali leading and charting the course, the distribution of the 50,000 house lots in 5 years will be met.”

He added that several other areas will be developed with estimated spending of over $400 billion.

Further, he stated that providing the residents with top quality water is a priority for the Ministry. Here in Region Five, a large water treatment plant will be constructed at Bath to the tune of US$8.4 million – the tenders will go out in the new year – this will address the water issues of over 23,500 residents in this region.”

Regional Chairman Vickchand Ramphal commended the Ministers for taking the bold step to ensure that those who would have been promised house lots before 2020 received them so that they can adequately provide shelter for their families.

He noted too, that over the past year, there has been tremendous progress in the housing sector in Region Five and again commended the leadership of both Ministers while reiterating that it is a testimony of the commitment by the PPP/C Government.

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