Gaskin fires lawyer in GPL hearing
Stabroek News
March 18, 2003
Ramon Gaskin fired his law-yer yesterday when his petition to block proposed tariffs by Guyana Power and Light (GPL) came up before Justice Dawn Gregory- Barnes.
The sacked attorney Anil Mohabir Nandalall told the court that his former client had requested him to make a certain application which would have compromised his [Nandalall’s] ethics both personally and professionally. Thus, Nandalall said, the “trust and confidence between [lawyer and client] deteriorated so that Mr Gaskin eventually terminated my services.”
Gaskin then told the court that he had written a letter to the Supreme Court Registrar informing her of the situation, and further sought leave to retain another counsel in the matter.
Initially, Justice Gregory- Barnes granted this request but Senior Counsel (SC) Rex McKay objected saying that preliminary arguments for the respondents in the matter had already been submitted and he was prepared to begin arguments. McKay noted that the matter was urgent as his clients were losing approximately US$30,000 daily while the aforementioned application was pending.
The judge then reduced the two weeks standard leave granted to Gaskin to 10 days during which the applicant is expected to retain another counsel and present preliminary arguments in support of his petition.
But McKay was not satisfied and petitioned the judge to leave the matter open and send the relevant files to the Chief Justice for a decision regarding the amount of time Gaskin ought to be given to hire another lawyer and present his preliminary contentions.
Justice Gregory-Barnes then sent the files to the chambers of Chief Justice Carl Singh for a decision on the matter. Up to press time, Stabroek News was unable to ascertain Singh’s decision.
SC Miles Fitzpatrick and attorney Timothy Jonas are also appearing on GPL’s behalf. On January 31, Justice Gregory-Barnes ordered that an order nisi be issued, directed to GPL to show cause why a writ of certiorari should not be issued to quash its decision to increase rates.
She further ordered that an order rule nisi of prohibition be issued for GPL to show cause why a writ of prohibition should not be issued restraining the increases. Gaskin had argued in his motion that as a result of the failure of GPL to carry out expansion plans and to inject the requisite capital, commercial and technical losses continued to increase resulting in a continuous increase in the tariffs/rates structure.
Customers of GPL were in no way responsible for these financial losses, yet they were unlawfully, unreasonably and unfairly required to bear these losses in the form of increased tariffs.
The orders had the effect of blocking the rates temporarily thus severely reducing the company’s revenue.
It has since closed down the Kingston power plant to save fuel and briefly put in place a power rationing system which was halted when the government handed over $100M in arrears.
