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JULY 13TH - JULY 20TH, 2013
TURKS & CAICOS SUN
LOCAL NEWS Statement issued on behalf of the Turks and Caicos Islands’ (TCI) Attorney General, Huw Shepheard regarding court ruling on PNP Headquarters
T
he TCI Supreme Court ruled in the Crown’s favour, giving judgment in the claim by the Attorney General against the Progressive National Party (PNP) today, Friday, 12 July 2013. The Court, dismissing the PNP’s argument that it is entitled to parcel 60602/79 in Providenciales on which its headquarters stands, held (paragraph 53) that “The only possible conclusion is that the beneficial and legal interest in the Land was always and remains in the Crown”. Judge Ramsey Hale, giving the Court’s judgment, rejected the evidence of Floyd Hall, former Deputy Leader of the PNP and Deputy Premier of the PNP Government in 2006/7. Mr Hall was the primary witness in support of the PNP’s defences to the TCI Government’s claim for the Land. Mr Hall gave evidence that he mistakenly believed that the PNP had a lease of the land (paragraphs 10 and 12 of the Judgment). The Judge rejected Mr Hall’s evidence. She said: “…it is impossible to accept that Mr Hall, an experienced accountant and a leader of the Party, and the man responsible for preparing the Party’s accounts, was unaware that no rent had been paid in respect of the Land. He would have known from the fact that no rent had been paid that no Conditional Purchase Lease (CPL) had been granted. His evidence that he believed, because planning permission had been granted, that the PNP had a lease the execution of which Arlington Musgrove somehow co-ordinated and for which Musgrove, as a card carrying member of the Party, had elected to pay, frankly strains the credulity of this Court and I reject it.” (paragraph 33). The Judge went on to conclude (paragraph 34): “…in my judgment, the only inference to be drawn from the evidence is that Mr Hall and the PNP knew that no lease had been agreed, executed or granted by the Governor and that it had no title to the land”. In other findings in the case, the Judge also determined that the PNP, as an unincorporated association, has no legal personality and cannot sue or be sued. She therefore determined that the
claims for damages could not be pursued against the PNP as a body, or Mr Cooke, the Chairman of the PNP, since it had not been shown that he personally was a trespasser, nor was he deemed by the Court to be legally representative of all the PNP members. The outcome of the case is therefore that the Crown is entitled to parcel 60602/79 including the PNP headquarters, but it is not entitled to pursue its claim for damages against the PNP (because it does not legally exist according to the Court) or against Mr Cooke (because he has not personally been shown to be a trespasser). The Crown would be entitled to claim damages for trespass against any individual PNP member or other person whom it could prove had been trespassing on the land. Commenting on the Judgment, the Attorney General said: “I am pleased that judgment has now been given, and that the Court has agreed with our case that the Crown is entitled to this valuable parcel of land and office building built on it. This has been a difficult case, which we had always hoped would be resolved amicably, and I am sorry that it was necessary to bring the matter to a trial to resolve it. I very much hope it will now be possible to deal with the remaining matters amicably, and for the PNP to accept the judge’s ruling and voluntarily to hand over possession of the building as quickly as possible. “I will consider the comments of the judge carefully in relation to the damages aspect of the case. Although it seems that it would be open for me to bring proceedings for damages against anyone who has been in occupation of the building since 2006, these proceedings were always about recovery of the land and never really about money. Our foremost aim was always to recover the land and that has now been achieved. I will now have to consider whether it is in the public interest to take any further steps to seek to recover damages, and I will do that over the coming days. “We will also need to wait and see whether the
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PNP decides to appeal this judgment but I do hope all aspects of this matter can be brought swiftly to an amicable conclusion. My door is open, as it always has been, to resolving all matters in a friendly way with the PNP as quickly as possible without the need for any further legal steps.” This successful judgment is the latest in a series of recoveries by the Civil Recovery Team led by Edwards Wildman. It follows the announcement at the end of May of the recovery of 550 acres of land and $75,000 in cash in a settlement with Richard Padgett. The team has now recovered for TCIG over 3,000 acres of land (currently valued at in excess of $100m) and nearly $20m in cash paid or ordered to be paid for TCIG.
Pnp Response To Attorney General’s Statement On Court Ruling
A
press release issued on behalf of the Attorney General about the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling on the Progressive National Party (PNP) headquarters is misleading to the point of dishonesty and can only be intended to cover up this almost criminal waste of Turks and Caicos Islands tax payers’ money. The PNP has never claimed title to the land, but rather only to be allowed to purchase it for a reasonable amount and to pay a reasonable rent for the time the Party has occupied the land since building its headquarters there. Ownership of the land was never in issue and for the Attorney General to spend thousands of tax payer dollars for the Court to tell him what everyone knew and accepted was wasteful. The court proceedings were brought by the Attorney General to evict the PNP and take possession of the building, but that claim was dismissed by the court, which stated: “As the PNP is not a legal entity the claim against it must be dismissed. For the reasons I have given, Mr Cooke cannot represent the members of the PNP in the action for the trespass as it cannot be said that all the members of the PNP have the same defence. The claim against Mr Cooke personally in respect of the trespass to the land is dismissed, there being no evidence before the court that he is or has been a trespasser.
As action to recover possession can only be taken against the persons, real or legal, who are in possession of the property and the PNP is not a person. No evidence has been led as to who is in actual possession of the premises. Insofar as the as the Plaintiff (AG) purports to proceed against Mr Cooke personally to recover possession of the land, that claim too is dismissed, there being no evidence that he is in possession of the land or any part of it.” The Attorney General also claimed to be entitled to repayment of the sum of $480,000.00 in rents paid to a private management company for MPs constituency offices located in the building. That claim was abandoned midway through the trial. The Attorney General further claimed an order to be permitted to demolish the building. That claim was abandoned at the commencement of the trial. It would have amounted to nothing more than court sanctioned vandalism. The Attorney General was told, before he issued these proceedings that he could not sue the PNP because it is not a legal person. It was for this reason that his case for possession against the PNP was dismissed. The Attorney General was told that naming Trevor Cooke as a defendant on the basis that he is the Chairman of the PNP did not help his cause. In the end the case against
Trevor Cooke was dismissed. It is true that the Court rejected the estoppel defences raised on behalf of the PNP. However these were defences, not claims. The distinction is important: a claim is a request of the court to allow some positive action, whilst a defence is a request to deny that action. In this case the Court denied the Attorney General’s claim to evict the PNP though not on the basis of the estoppels raised on behalf of the PNP but on the basis that the PNP cannot be sued because it is not a legal person. That is a principle that is taught in first year law school! So after all is said and done the Attorney General has paid the Civil Recovery Team in excess of $250,000.00 to get no further than where he was before the proceedings were commenced and for the Court to tell him what we all knew and accepted from the beginning. It’s no wonder he’s looking forward to negotiating an amicable resolution. An amicable resolution is what the PNP has been asking for from the very beginning, however the Attorney General was hell-bent on litigation, designed to have what was not his. Contrary to free advice, he went about it in the wrong way and the Court has now dismissed his claims. At the costs submissions hearing next Friday 19 July the PNP and Trevor Cooke will be seeking costs orders against him.