The court battle between government and ousted members of the National Conservation Council came to an abrupt end Thursday after a truce was negotiated.
A compromise board has been appointed with the new coalition government moving quickly to bring an end to the costly legal dispute.
The judicial review over the previous government’s decision to dismiss the bulk of the council – replacing them with what were described in an earlier court hearing as “political appointees” – was already under way when the compromise was revealed.
After the lunch interval, Thursday, lawyers for both parties returned to court having settled the matter.
Government agreed to appoint an entirely new board including members with relevant technical and environmental expertise.
Among those appointed by the new government are environmental scientist Ian Kirkham, who will be chair; Geddes Hislop, a wildlife biologist who works at Cayman Turtle Centre; Walling Whittaker, former chief officer at the Department of Environmental Health; Catherine Childs, the National Trust’s Environmental Programmes manager; and Samantha Shields, dean of St. Matthew’s University School of Veterinary Medicine.
The board does not include former chair Stuart Mailer or Patricia Bradley – the two members who brought the court challenge. But lawyers for the pair said they were happy that their concerns had been addressed and that the make-up of the new board included enough expertise to fulfil its remit.
Kate McClymont, of Nelsons, representing both, told the Compass, “This was never about egos or personal positions. They wanted to ensure that whoever was appointed to the council had the relevant expertise to do the best possible job for the people of the Cayman Islands in line with what was anticipated by Parliament when the National Conservation Law was passed.”
Background
The previous UPM government dismissed almost half of the members of the board – including chairman Mailer, ornithologist Bradley, climate policy expert Lisa-Ann Hurlston-McKenzie and Ocean Frontiers founder Steve Broadbelt – in February of this year.
They were replaced with a new group, including former MPs Ezzard Miller, Arden McLean, Captain Eugene Ebanks, and Gilbert McLean, who was to be the chairman.
The appointments sparked concern that the make-up of the council did not meet the legal requirement for the board to have relevant technical and scientific experience to address the range of ecological challenges facing the Cayman Islands.
A judicial review application filed by Mailer and Bradley passed an initial threshold when Justice Marlene Carter decided the case had enough merit to proceed to trial and ordered an injunction on the new council from making any decisions.
Political appointees?
In that initial hearing Chris Buttler, KC, laid out the case against the UPM appointed council.
Describing some of the new council members as lacking in relevant expertise and experience and “avowedly anti-conservation and anti-science”, Buttler told the court that shortly before the Cabinet of Juliana O’Connor-Connolly’s minority government made the appointments, an effort to push through controversial amendments to the National Conservation Act had been voted down by MPs on 31 Jan. One of those proposed amendments was revoking a requirement for members of the council to have technical or scientific knowledge, he said.
“The Cabinet wanted the NCC to take decisions in line with political priorities, rather than in line with science,” he told Carter.
“Having failed to persuade Parliament, the Cabinet then tried to achieve similar ends by taking the decision that’s now under challenge in this case.”
During the hearing, Buttler read excerpts from the official parliamentary record, or Hansard, in which Arden McLean is reported as saying, “I am not a conservationist. I am no tree hugger.”
New government, new council
The new government – which includes MPs who opposed the decision to change the council – had been in place for little over a week when the case began Thursday.
In an ‘extraordinary gazette’ published the same day, the new board appointments were announced.
Once the appointments were confirmed, lawyers for Mailer and Bradley, agreed not to proceed with the case.
McClymot said, “We are grateful that the new government moved quickly to remedy the situation and happy to have reached a compromise that we believe is in the best interests of the country. Once that was achieved, there was no need for the case to continue.”
Following the agreement, Justice Carter announced a settlement had been agreed and issued an order that the application for judicial review be withdrawn.
