Taxpayers will pay if Cooper’s Pen men win lawsuits – Coley Nicholson

WESTERN BUREAU:

Attorney-at-law Helene Coley Nicholson, president of Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship Jamaica, is warning that lawsuits filed against the State, for breaching the constitutional rights of residents of Cooper’s Pen, Trelawny, could cost taxpayers. Several of those residents were arrested prior to last Tuesday’s demolition exercise that flattened 20 houses.

While delivering the keynote address at yesterday’s opening session of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) 62nd annual conference, held at the Ocean Coral Spring Resort in Trelawny, Coley Nicholson said that while steps should be immediately taken to provide housing for the Cooper’s Pen residents, the controversy arising from the demolition outlines a long-standing campaign of disenfranchisement that has been enabled by government bodies over the years.

“First, let me say that my heart goes out to the residents who lived through the trauma of the demolition and, if reports that the men of the community were detained prior to the demolition are true, then lawsuits against the State should be considered for breach of their constitutional rights to liberty, due process, and a myriad of other rights. At the end of the day, should the men succeed, it is we the taxpayers who would have to pay for their loss and damages,” said Coley Nicholson.

“But the facts, which form the basis of the decisions of the courts, contain a stark outline of what the architects of the system of government have created, how that system has maintained the disempowerment of our people by validating illegality and fostering dependence, and the disrespect for judicial processes. People cannot live dignified lives without principles, law, and order; and people cannot live dignified lives by being underdeveloped and kept dependent on a new breed of post-colonial masters from any political party, even if they look like us,” Coley Nicholson added.

Released without charge

On August 11, more than 20 men from the Cooper’s Pen community were detained by the police shortly before 20 concrete houses on the 705-acre property were demolished. The men were later released without being charged.

Following the demolition exercise, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness called the displacement of the Cooper’s Pen residents a ‘humanitarian crisis’, even as he acknowledged that the affected residents’ plight should not be taken as support for illegal occupation of land.

Additionally, human-rights lobby Jamaicans for Justice called for the Jamaica Constabulary Force to clearly explain the legal grounds on which the men were held before the demolition exercise.

New Falmouth Resorts Limited is the legal owner of the property, which has been the subject of national discourse since the demolition exercise and detention of the men.

Coley Nicholson told yesterday’s conference that Jamaica’s leaders must develop policies on land ownership that will empower and educate citizens about their rights and capacity for development.

“It is time for a conversation about the responsibility of leadership to design land policy which delivers land to the landless and disenfranchised, which is transparent and apolitical. It necessitates examination of the current use of public lands, the more than ample legal mechanisms that exist to put people on public lands, and the design or updating of public policy to facilitate true emancipation and independence of people who only know what dependence means,” she said.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com