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Portmore loses toll road lawsuit

Work continues on the Portmore Causeway leg of Highway 2000. - rudolph brown

PORTMORE RESIDENTS WILL be forced to use the Mandela Highway as an alternative route to the Portmore leg of Highway 2000 following yesterday's ruling of the Judicial Review Court.

Miss Justice Gloria Smith in handing down her decision, found that the Minister of Transport and Works had not acted unlawfully in designating the Portmore Causeway bridge as a toll road because there was an alternative route in the same area which was accessible to vehicular and other traffic as required under the Toll Roads Act.

The Portmore Citizens' Advisory Council and the Portmore Joint Citizens' Association had brought the motion seeking declarations that the minister had breached the Toll Roads Act because the alternative route was not in the same area where the toll road was built.

They had applied for an order quashing the designation of the Toll Roads (Designation of Highway 2000 Phase 1) Order 2000 and a declaration that the Mandela Highway which is designated as the alternative route was not a lawful route but they were not successful.

Attorney-At-law Candis Hamilton, one of the lawyers who appeared with Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., for the claimants, told THE STAR yesterday that the judge had promised that her written judgment would be ready today. She said the claimants had six weeks in which to file an appeal and therefore the first step would be to review the judgment.

The residents said that it was only in March this year that they became aware that Mandela Highway was going to be the alternative route and that was the reason for the delay in bringing the claim.

The judge, in interpreting the Toll Roads Act, and the claimants' contention that the alternative route must be in the same area as the toll road, said each occasion had to be looked at within all the circumstances by the minister in designating an alternative route.

Reasonable route

The judge said it was the court's considered view that the minister had chosen the most reasonable route. "The Portmore Causeway bridge/road and the Mandela Highway are accepted as being in the same area for the purposes of the order and by extension, the Toll Roads Act," the judge held.

The judge, in handing down her decision, upheld legal arguments by Michael Hylton, Q.C., Solicitor-General, Patrick Foster, Deputy Solicitor-General, Candace Rochester and Analiesa Lindsay, that the minister had not acted unlawfully in designating the toll road because there was an alternative route in the same area which was accessible to vehicular and other traffic as required under the Toll Roads Act.

The claimants had sought an order to quash the minister's order designating the toll road but the judge said the application must be denied as they did not satisfy the court that there was a basis on which to quash the designation order.