Appeal Court sends oil permit matter back to High Court

The legal challenge mounted by political activist, Ramon Gaskin, over the granting of environmental permits to oil companies conducting explorations in Guyana is set to return to the High Court.

The matter, filed by Gaskin earlier this year, seeks to challenge the State, particularly the Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman’s decision to authorise oil companies, Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd (“Hess”) and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Ltd. (“Nexen”) to conduct explorations here, without proper environmental permit(s).

More specifically, Gaskin sought to block the companies from proceeding with their exploration and production on the grounds that Hess and Nexen have not been issued separate environmental permits.

The case had initially been thrown out of the High Court after it came up before Justice Franklyn Holder. Gaskin, nonetheless, through his attorneys, had moved to the appellate Court, asking for among other things a speedy hearing of the case.

Yesterday, Appellate Judge Rafiq Khan noted, however, the Court of Appeal should not be hearing arguments that were never presented in the High Court. Meanwhile, Appellate Judge Dawn Gregory pointed out that Gaskin had put forth a two-prong argument; one to do with the ability of Hess and Nexen to carry out the licence safely; and the other procedural – calling for the matter to be dealt with urgently.

She noted that while the court was not satisfied with urgency on the first count, merits in the second prong of the argument is that the matter should be dealt with expeditiously.

“So we grant the application to treat it with urgency.”

The matter was therefore be referred to the High Court for the Chief Justice to fix a date for the matter to start again before a Full Court. When the matter came up last month, Trinidad-based Guyanese Senior Counsel, Seenath Jairam sought to convince the Appellate Judges that the Court should hear the appeal urgently, since it has to do with liability for environmental impact on Guyana and the Caribbean and neighbouring countries. “If there is an environmental disaster, God forbid, we are saying there are grave consequences not only for Guyana but the Caribbean, given where the Liza wells are near the Caribbean Sea and our neighbouring countries,” he said.

(Kaieteur News)