Justice Marlene Carter has ruled that the National Conservation Council cannot make any decisions until a court hearing next month to determine if a judicial review should go ahead into the legality of Cabinet appointing former politicians as council members.
Following an application by lawyers representing two members who had been removed from the council in February, the Grand Court judge agreed to put an interim stay in place, ordering that the body “shall not make any decision pending the final determination of the claim for judicial review or further order”.
The order does not prevent the council from meeting, so long as its members make no decisions.
If an urgent matter arises that necessitates a decision to be made by the council, the judge ruled that it can apply to the court to vary or change her order with 72 hours’ notice.
The application was heard by the court on Monday morning, hours before the National Conservation Council was to hold a working group meeting at 3pm. That meeting was subsequently cancelled.
Lawyers Chris Buttler, KC, and Kate McClymont, acting for Stuart Mailer and Patricia Bradley, who were among six council members removed from the board by Cabinet in February, had sought to either prevent the board from meeting or from making decisions in the run-up to their application for a judicial review, which will be heard on 15-16 May.
If the bid for a judicial review into the appointments of the new council members is successful, the judge said the review itself “could be heard within a short period”.
The council has not had any meetings since the appointments by Cabinet on 12 Feb. of the seven new members, which included former politicians Ezzard Miller, Arden McLean, Captain Eugene Ebanks and chairman Gilbert McLean, as well as Kenny Ryan, Steve McField and Paula Tathum.
The new appointees replaced the council’s then chairman Mailer, ornithologist Bradley, climate policy expert Lisa-Ann Hurlston-McKenzie, Ocean Frontiers founder Steve Broadbelt, Lucille Seymour and Pierre Foster.
Buttler, in his submissions to the court on Monday, described the new appointments as being blatantly political. Stating that the new members have no relevant technical or scientific expertise, as required by the National Conservation Act, he told the court the appointments had been made to undermine the conservation council.
He said just days before Cabinet had made the appointments, a bid to pass amendments to remove technical and scientific experts from the council had been rejected in Parliament, so Cabinet had taken this alternative tack instead.
