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CARNIVAL events management company Wild Goose Ltd has been denied conditional leave to take their challenge against the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) further after one of its fetes was shut down in 2019.
On Monday, Justices of Appeal Prakash Moosai, Charmaine Pemberton and James Aboud refused Wild Goose Ltd conditional leave to take their challenge to the Privy Council.
In October, Justices of Appeal Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Prakash Moosai and Gillian Lucky upheld the EMA’s appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2021 in favour of the fete promoter.
The judges held the decision to shut down the Tailgate event was ultra vires since the Environmental Management Act did not permit the EMA to do so. However, they allowed the authority’s appeal since, according to them, officers of the EMA’s environmental police unit could have turned off the music under other legislation to “abate the crime of public nuisance” created by Wild Goose on the night.
They also said there were laws for the police to provide “immediate relief” when there is a threat or actual contravention of the law by noisy neighbours or an event.
They also set aside the orders of Justice Margaret Mohammed.
In their ruling, the judges said there was a need for legislative changes since the act itself did not create a public nuisance or provide the power to abate it. They said the appeal highlighted the “inadequacy” of the act since, for the EMA to act, it had to first look at the common law.
The EMA had appealed Mohammed’s ruling in Wild Goose Ltd’s judicial review claim after the EMA and Snr Supt Garth Nelson shut down its Tailgate Carnival event at the Queen’s Park Savannah on February 26, 2019, two hours early for breaches to noise levels.
It was alleged that the event was exceeding decibel levels set in a noise variation granted to Wild Goose for the event. The noise variation allowed the promoters to play music at 85 decibels from 6-8 pm and 75 decibels from 8 pm-2 am.
Wild Goose was represented by Christopher Rodriguez and Rhyjell Ellis while the EMA was represented by Senior Counsel Ian Benjamin and Kelvin Ramkissoon.
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