When we last left the Tourism Village wall case, Brown Sugar marketplace and the Harbour View group of companies were crying foul on the Tourism Village, alleging after Justice John Muria, acting as an Appeals judge on April 23, ruled that he could not grant a stay on the decision of Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh on April 6 rejecting an appeal from the Village to keep the walls up pending meetings to discuss new security arrangements.
Not only did the Village proceed to break down the walls separating the establishments as ordered in the Chief Justice’s original decision on March 11, which was upheld twice in April, but they also damaged the boardwalk on the Fort Street side of the property connecting the companies, continuing to deny access to the cruise ships served by Fort Street.
Yesterday, Tuesday, the Chief Justice granted an injunction against the continued destruction of the boardwalk, and in a separate order, barred the Port Authority from beginning decertification proceedings against the Village. The C.J. said he was very “disturbed” by the “intolerable behavior” of the Village in destroying the boardwalk. The full hearing is set for May 15.
Speaking with local media on Tuesday, the attorney for Brown Sugar and Harbour View, Fred Lumor, insisted that FSTV’s operations manager James Nisbet, security manager Michael Mulligan, Ports Commissioner Major (ret) Lloyd Jones and his employees, Kenrick Daly and Andrew Coc, and even Attorney General Wilfred Elrington and Natural Resources Minister Gaspar Vega, ought to be in jail for contempt of court. Lumor maintained that “no one is above the law,” not even the Village.
But Nisbet says he is acting in the best interests of the industry, and that the complainants can’t possibly know what they are doing to the industry by continuing the action. He called the C.J.’s order to the Authority “ridiculous,” saying that the C.J. was denying Jones the chance to get the job done that he, the Chief Justice, ordered done in March.
The two sides have taken their case to the media, with Nisbet appearing on KREM Wake Up Belize Morning Vibes on Monday morning, a day before the injunction was given, and engaging in heated discussions with two representatives of Brown Sugar and Harbour View, among others.