Justice Brassington Reynolds yesterday refused a request to issue a temporary order to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to prohibit contractor Smart City Solutions (SCS) from administering the metered parking system in the city, while saying he wanted to be fully briefed on the entire case.
Justice Reynolds was at the time responding to a request from attorney Kamal Ramkarran for an order to have SCS, which operates under the auspices of the M&CC, stop imposing charges on drivers who do not pay parking fees in metered zones. He also asked the court to order that SCS desist from clamping those vehicles, and stop imposing all other sanctions associated with the recently implemented controversial parking meter project.
Ramkarran is representing Mohendra Arjune, a conveyancing clerk attached to the Cameron and Shepherd law firm, who has applied to the court for judicial review.
In support of his request for the temporary orders he was seeking, Ramkarran, at a hearing yesterday morning, advanced that the court had unlimited jurisdiction, and the inherent power to make any order, in the interest of justice.
The judge, however, affirmed that he was not going to make such an order before being properly briefed from the entire case file.
At the hearing, counsel for the M&CC, Roger Yearwood argued that the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case before it.
The matter continues this morning at 9.15 when Justice Reynolds will hear arguments from both sides on the issue of jurisdiction.
On February 16, acting Chief Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards granted an order asking the M&CC and Town Clerk Royston King to show cause why the decision to enter into an agreement with SCS and to make amendments to that agreement for the setting up of parking meters in Georgetown, should not be quashed.
The Chief Justice had also called on the council and Town Clerk to show cause why the decision authorising the Town Clerk to sign and operationalise contracts with SCS for the establishment of parking meters in Georgetown and all acts flowing from that decision should not be similarly quashed.
There are seven grounds listed for the application, including what Ramkarran argued was the city’s failure to comply with mandatory prerequisites set out in Sections 230 and 231 of the Municipal and District Councils Act.
Section 231 of the Act states that before entering into any contract for the execution of any work or the supply of any goods to the value of $250,000 or more, a council is required to give notice of such proposed contract and “shall by such notice invite any person willing to undertake the same to submit a sealed tender thereof to the council….”
Ramkarran also argued that by entering into the May 13, 2016 contract, M&CC unlawfully and in an ultra vires manner delegated its statutorily derived power to erect and maintain parking meters under and in terms of Section 276(b) of the Act and acted contrary to Section 21 of the Civil Law Act of Guyana, which prohibits the establishment of monopolies in Guyana.
Under the terms of the May 13, 2016 contract, “during the term the city shall not operate and will neither permit the operation of paid public parking facilities not the operation of any metered parking systems other than that of the [SCS] save with the written permission of [SCS].” This condition remains unchanged in the amended contract, which was signed on September 16, 2016.
Ramkarran also argued that the current council by signing the contract have fettered themselves and future councils for a period well in excess of their present term. He also argued that the decision to exempt teachers and employees of the Bank of Guyana from charges was arbitrary, discriminatory and contrary to the operation of the rule of law.
In an affidavit supporting the application, Arjune noted that the parking fees of approximately $37,120 have been “extremely onerous” to him. He further noted that media reports on February 13 stated the M&CC and SCS had “arbitrarily and without seeking any input from me or other persons affected by the parking fees, reduced the parking fees to about $112 an hour,” a sum which was still onerous.
Additionally, Arjune said he was fearful that they will “arbitrarily raise those fees again as soon as public protesting against the parking meters have stopped,” before arguing that if the contract itself was illegal, he should not be subject to any charges.
