THE Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart and his holding company Gorstew, granting them leave to commence a judicial review against the contractor general in the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel matter. Following is the full text of a news release from Gorstew’s lawyers:
“On January 30, 2013, Mr Justice Fraser granted permission to Gorstew Limited and its principal the Hon Gordon Stewart, OJ, to commence a claim for judicial review against the contractor general.
The proceedings relate to the Contractor General’s decision to initiate investigations and issue requisitions concerning the sale of the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel.
In granting permission for the proceedings to be commenced, the learned judge accepted the submissions of counsel for Gorstew and Mr Stewart that the application was made promptly, but had there been a need to extend the time for the application to have been brought, he would have done so as to enable the important substantive issues raised to be resolved.Additionally, Mr Justice Fraser, having already determined that there was no alternative remedy available to Gorstew and Mr Stewart to challenge the actions of the contractor general, ruled that there was a good arguable case with a realistic prospect of success.
In his detailed reasons for judgment, comprising 199 paragraphs, His Lordship explained that due to:
a. the uncertainty on several levels as to the scope of the Contractor General’s Act, and in particular whether its remit included contracts for the divestment of government-owned land
b. the long-standing case of Wright v The Telecommunications of Jamaica Limited (decided on October 6, 1989 in open court), in which the former Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe ruled that an agreement for the sale of land to The Telephone Company of Jamaica, which was a public body at the time, was not a government contract (a decision which has never been challenged on appeal); and
c. Parliament’s decision to not amend the Contractor General’s Act in spite of the recommendation to do so in the Wright case and the repeated entreaties of the contractor general, it was appropriate for the issues which arose in the claim to be determined in an expedited hearing before a Full Court.
In view of the contractor general’s insistence that the requisitions issued be complied with, even if this was being challenged in court by Gorstew and Mr Stewart, the learned judge also ordered that the permission to commence the claim for judicial review would operate as a stay of the pending investigations being conducted by the contractor general until the ruling of the Court in the future hearings of the judicial review by the Full Court.
The learned judge said that in the event he were wrong in granting the stay, he would have in any event granted an interim injunction against the contractor general in view of the reputational risk at stake for Gorstew and Mr Stewart, and this moreso in light of the absence of any prejudice to the contractor general. He also ordered that the costs of the application were to be costs in the judicial review proceedings.
Counsel for the contractor general had previously indicated that their instructions were to appeal Justice Fraser’s decision.
Mr Justice Fraser said that the matter is of public importance and scheduled it for first hearing on March 21, 2013 at 2:00 pm.”
