Government will honour several judgements made against Guyana by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), according to Minister of State Joseph Harmon, who says it will, however, first make efforts to determine whether reduced damages would be accepted.
Harmon made mention of the TT$2.5M judgement made in favour of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) and US$6M judgement made in favour of Suriname company Rudisa Beverages.
Speaking to reporters at his post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday, he said there are several court matters against Guyana where judgements had been entered in the CCJ and for which the country continues to be in default. He said Cabinet made it clear that “as a law abiding country where the rule of law will reign supreme, judgments of court have to be respected unless they are vacated.”
He said Cabinet took the position that the TCL and Rudisa judgements must be honoured. The judgement for TCL, he later explained, includes a sum that was put there because of “our contempt for the court.”
However in the “spirit of our accepting this responsibility, Cabinet has advised the Minister of Legal Affairs to seek to enter into negotiations with these countries with a view to finding out whether they were prepared to accept a smaller sum as a final settlement in these matters,” Harmon said.
In 2014, the CCJ had ruled in Rudisa’s favour and awarded the company the sum which had been collected in an environmental tax that was found to contravene the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
In its ruling, the court had also ordered Guyana to take the necessary legal or other measures to prevent the collection of the environmental tax on goods of Caricom origin. According to the ruling, the country was also obliged to file a report with the Court within six months on its compliance with the orders made by the Court. Asked for a response to a claim by former Attorney General Anil Nandlall that more legal challenges will be faced given that the law stands and the current government while in opposition refused to allow changes, Harmon pointed out that the judgement for the beverage company was for a violation of the revised treaty by Guyana. He said the then government brought a piece of legislation which was styled as environmental tax. “It was meant rather than removing this obnoxious imposition of a container tax, to create additional taxes on other persons so you bring them even. This is what we objected to,” he said, while noting that then opposition’s position was that if there was to be an environmental tax, the proceeds should be connected to the environment. “It must not just go into a lump sum and then you utilise it for everything else that you want to use. It was meant to be dealt with for issues relating to the environment,” Harmon said. “Therefore, if you are introducing an environmental tax then the environment should benefit from that tax. We raised those issues,” he added.
He also said that during the 10th Parliament the opposition indicated that billions of dollars were already collected on the tax but were never applied to anything related to the environment. He said when the tax was first introduced, there was to be a separate account into which the money would go for the benefit of the environment. “That was the commitment the Minister of Finance at that time gave to the National Assembly; that the separate account would be put there,” he said, while recalling that the matter was vigorously argued in the National Assembly and that the PNCR representative at that time pointed out to the government that if it insisted on applying the tax in the way it was, “you are going to run afoul of Caricom treaty obligations and they insisted on doing it and that was the result.”
Harmon added that Nandlall is trying to change history by blaming the opposition for what has happened. “He was in contempt to the court,” he said, before adding that his research also shows that the former Cabinet approved the sums of money for the judgments to be paid. “In spite of that, this crass contempt continued. So it is not about Mr. Nandlall challenging the Attorney General Basil Williams as to who is right and who is wrong. The records are there…,” he said, before adding that the government now has to show that it respects the law and the judgement of the court of final jurisdiction.
