Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/2833/-1/135/
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Bills Causing Widespread Debate
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The Physical Planning Bill, 2005 and the Labour Code Bill, 2005 which were postponed in the House of Assembly on August 23 after the first readings, are attracting serious debate island-wide. Speaker of the Anguilla House of Assembly, David Carty, called for the postponement of the Bills on that date in the interest of transparent government and democracy to allow the Elected Members to discuss the provisions of the draft legislation with their constituents and to obtain the peoples’ “serious and wise input.” That input is regarded as being so serious and important that a number of Anguillian lawyers and other concerned persons have thrown themselves into the public debate as well.
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Dame Bernice Lake, QC
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A mass public meeting to that effect was held at the premises of Kirkley Carty at Blowing Point on Tuesday night, September 20, in the Road South constituency of Opposition Member Hubert Hughes. The main speakers were Lawyers Dame Bernice Lake, QC, Paulette Harrigan and Josephine Gumbs-Connor and the Founder of the Anguilla Tennis Academy, Mitchelle Lake, who spoke as a concerned person. The meeting was chaired by another concerned individual, Evan Lake, who said it had nothing to do with politics but rather the interest and welfare of Anguilla and its people.
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Mr. Hubert Hughes
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The meeting commenced with introductory remarks by Mr. Hughes. He said it was the first time in the history of the House of Assembly that a Speaker had called for legislation to be discussed with the people. “Obviously, David Carty understands how detrimental these Bills are to future of generations yet unborn,” he stated.
Miss Lake spoke on both the Physical Planning Bill, which is the object of fierce debate, and called for its withdrawal, and the Labour Code Bill which is receiving far less criticism. She said she had made it her business and duty to keep a watchful eye on developments in Anguilla both from the standpoint of the rule of law as well as the protection and promotion of the peoples’ constitutional rights, culture, social environment and economic welfare. She was grateful that there were now other persons coming forward on whose shoulders she could lay down that mantle.
Miss Lake said the Physical Planning Bill was intended to resolve tensions between the land-owning community in Anguilla and the desire of Government to effect control over the use and enjoyment of land which would impact upon the way of life as it was known on the island up to now. “We are concerned because Anguilla has a particular and peculiar identity of its own…” she said. “It has been beset by economic hardships and the hallmark of Anguillians has been their ability to survive and surmount those hardships and challenges and that too has helped to fashion them in their cultural and social identity.”
Miss Lake told the people that they should check and verify whether their constitutional rights were being threatened in any way by the Physical Planning Bill, a model of OECS legislation. One of the points she made was that although the draft National Land Use Policy had not been made law because of criticisms of its constitutional violations, the Physical Planning Officer said it was still being used as a guide in administering the department and making decisions on planning development in Anguilla.
The Anguillian Dame said a reason for public concern was that the Physical Planning Bill “is supposed to give them the power to do lawfully all that they have been doing unlawfully.” She went on: “You have to be concerned because you have to be sure that this legislation does not set your cultural pattern at odds with itself… When you look at the legislation at first glance you would have to say that the framers have no connection with Anguilla and were not drafting any legislation that was designed to be in sync with Anguilla’s cultural patterns and as a prescription for private development.”
She said that if the Elected Members were in support of the Bill she would assume they had not read it and were supporting a document without having embracing and owning it by reading and understanding all that it was about. “When they look at the legislation they would see that the pattern and way of life that the people of Anguilla enjoy by building their homes in stages is going to be eliminated,” she observed. “According to the tenor of this Bill, you cannot occupy your house until it is certified by the Director of Development that the house has been completed in accordance with the building permits and building plans and that it is certified fit for occupancy.”
Miss Lake acknowledged that it was right to be concerned about safety, and necessary for somebody to certify that when a person moved into a structure, it was fit to be lived in. She said, however, that there was a big difference between certifying that the portion of the building for occupancy was safe and certifying that “the building has been completed in accordance with the permit and in accordance with all the plans.” She pointed out: “It means you cannot build in stages. You cannot move in now and build on another few rooms later on and, when your circumstances improve then you go upstairs... You can only build in relation to your immediate needs… and it means then that instead of building as and when you can, you got to go to the bank and borrow the money to do it.”
On the question of the Labour Code Bill, Miss Lake gave credit to the Labour Commissioner, Evalie Bradley for approaching her in connection with some of the provisions of the draft legislation. “I can see an attempt to put into effect the concerns I expressed,” she said. “Nevertheless, there are deep and fundamental and substantive flaws in that Bill. It is better than what you had before, but it is half a loaf when you are really entitled to a full loaf.”
Miss Lake urged members of the public to obtain copies of the Bills and if they were not able to understand the language, they should study the legislation in groups and in relation to what the lawyers were saying. “If a Bill cannot make itself understood by the layman whom it governs, then the Bill is not well drawn,” she added.
Lawyer Paulette Harrigan, spoke almost exclusively on the Physical Planning Bill which she said should be thrown out. “This Act was meant to deprive the people of Anguilla of their constitutional rights to use and enjoy their property,” she charged. “I felt that the Act was to deny them certain human rights and I thought that this Act was to infringe their common law rights.”
She said the people of Anguilla had already sub-divided their land, but the Bill was saying that “someone other than you is deciding how to divide up your property.” Quoting one of the reasons for the Bill that it “is to provide for the orderly sub-division of land and the provision of services in relation thereto, she stated: “It means it is the actual intention to sub-divide your land. Our land is already sub-divided and the only time it comes sub-divided we have to do so.” She charged that “it seems as if there is an external force which wishes to sub-divide our lands further ...”
Miss Harrigan, who undertook an exhaustive examination and analysis of the various provisions of the Bill, mentioned various powers of the Director of Development including stopping a person from building on an area of his or her directing how to use it; and regulate and control the design and size of a building, its location and the materials used in its construction.
“Our culture is such that we are able to express ourselves in how we design our houses,” she said. “If you look around Anguilla you would see all kinds of expressions, not only of personal tastes, but also of periods of time.” She also spoke about powers of acquisition of property under the draft legislation and the requirement of a person to obtain a development plan before starting to build on their land. “If you want to dig up some top soil from your land, you must first get a development permit,” she said as an example in terms of change of land use. She noted that the Director and the Planning Board had discretion as to whether or not they would approve the permit.
She argued that the Planning Department should be operated more in the interest of the people of Anguilla and, while ensuring certain safeguards, it should give positive support to their efforts and culture.
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Josephine Gumbs-Connor
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Lawyer Josephine Gumbs-Connor described the Physical Planning Bill as “the most damaging” measure “to have come from the Government because it hits at the heart of not just a few people but at the heart of a nation.” She further said: “The only real problem that I have with this piece of legislation, called the Physical Planning Bill, is that in a very subtle, in a very deceptive and cunning way, it shakes the ground right from under you and you never even realise that it is gone.”
She said that nowhere did the Bill state that the landowner must be able to make sustainable use and development of his own land for himself and his family. “Where is the protection of the individual to use and enjoy his land?” She asked. “It isn’t here; and if it isn’t here, that’s why I say that the wider Anguilla has rights but you the individual have none.”
Mrs. Gumbs-Connor went on: “This Act has gone wrong all the way. Further, throughout the Act, there is no specific protection that is given to the landowner. Where is the clause that should begin this whole Act to say ‘whereas the Government of Anguilla recognises that the people of Anguilla own 98 percent of the land and Government owns two percent?’ Where is it that speaks to the unique rights in Anguilla …where our cultural heritage has brought us from nothing to something? Nowhere in this Act is any credence of respect given to the landowner. Everybody in Anguilla is a landowner and respects the heritage our forefathers gave us. If our Government has not seen it fit to give us the respect we deserve, demand it.”
She said that while the Bills were being taken to community meetings for discussion and an airing of the views of the people, the Physical Planning Bill in particular should never have been brought before the eyes of the Anguillian people in the first place. “That is why we have to tell our Government that this will not do,” she declared. “The Government must have the respect and feel the respect of the people of Anguilla.”
She charged that while local landowners were being given difficulty to use their land, the legislation had not put any curbs on the sale of land to expatriate buyers, a matter which was a source of concern to her.
The lawyer spoke extensively on Government’s powers of compulsory acquisition of land, the constitutional rights of the people, their right for fair compensation and other matters related to the Physical Planning Bill and related legislation. She called on the people of the island “to break the culture of silence” and to take a stand on all matters of national interest affecting them and to be concerned about their rights which could be taken from them “at the stroke of a pen.”
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Mitchelle Lake
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The last main speaker, Mitchelle Lake, charged that if the leaders of the island were to pass the Physical Planning Bill in its present form, they had no vision for the future development of Anguilla. He said there were concerns about the social, legal, cultural and economic ramifications of the Bill.
He called on all Anguillians to reject the Bill in its current form. “This Bill should never have reached Anguillians as it does not serve the best interests of our people,” he went on. “Under this Physical Planning Bill we do not have the right to occupy our house without an occupancy certificate which says that the house must be completed; we cannot divide land between two or more parties without a development permit and Government has the right to compulsorily acquire our land for the wider interest of Anguilla’s development plan. He made the point however that there was a need for proper compensation first.
Lake stated that his group was not opposed to a Physical Planning Bill which was a necessity everywhere, but that such legislation should preserve the rights and freedoms of the people and that the draft Bill was not doing so.
He added that a petition would be drawn up in protest against the Bill and asked all Anguillians to sign it for submission to Government.
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Evan Lake
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Meanwhile, the third public discussion, organised by the Government in cooperation with the Opposition Members in the House of Assembly, was set for Thursday evening, September 22, at the Road Primary School Auditorium, in the same electoral constituency where Tuesday’s meeting was held.