THE JUDICIAL Review Court has upheld a preliminary point by lawyers representing the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) that Web Communications' motion seeking an order to bar the OUR from conducting a hearing into allegations against it was premature.
Web Communications was accused of using a Yap Jack device to bypass Cable and Wireless' International operations. Web Communications which marketed the Yap Jack, denied the allegations.
The OUR summoned Web Communications to a meeting scheduled for March 8, 2002 but the day before the meeting, the company obtained an order from the Supreme Court which barred the OUR from conducting the meeting.
It was also granted leave to file a motion in the Supreme Court seeking orders and declarations.
The motion came up for hearing before Miss Justice Gloria Smith in the Judicial Review Court last year September, and was brought by attorneys-at-law Maurice Manning and Georgia Gibson-Henlin who represented the OUR.
They argued that the company should have attended the meeting and raise its objections there. If dissatisfied with the outcome then under the Telecommuni-cations Act, there was provision for it to go to the Appeals Trib-unal. And if dissatisfied with the Tribunal's ruling, then it could take the matter to the Judicial Review Court.
The judge reserved her decision until yesterday when she handed down a written judgement that 'the preliminary objections are upheld on the basis that the applications for declaration and prohibition are premature and bypass the statutory scheme that is set up for the proper functioning of the OUR.'
