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The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council today gave judgment in the Bahamas case of Save Guana Cay Reef Association v Queen.  The Association’s appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal of the Bahamas was dismissed.   This is the end of a tenacious five year campaign to halt a large-scale development of the north-west part of Great Guana Cay (“the Cay”), an island north of Great Abaco.  Details can be found on the Association’s website.

UKSC Blog has obtained a copy of the judgment, which has the reference [2009] UKPC 44 and can be found here.  The judgment is now available on the ever reliable Baillii website. The case involved ten separate issues, including an allegation of apparent bias against the first instance judge who had been appointed on a temporary, 6 month, basis and had been a senator of the governing party.  The Association’s claim failed on each of these issues and its appeal was dismissed.

Unfortunately, the JCPC’s website has again, not kept up with developments.  The case was reported as being listed today but without a statement that judgment was to be given.  The judgment has not yet been made available on the JCPC website. 

While on the subject of the JCPC website, we note that today’s appeal in the case of Mossel (Jamaica) Limited (T/A Digicel) v. The Office of Utilities Regulation, Cable and Wireless J A Limited and Centennial JA Limited has now been added to the case details on the website.  The case summary tells us that the case is “An appeal from Jamaica concerning the regulation of the telecommunications market”.  No further indication is given of the nature of the claim being made or the judgment appealed against.   This can be contrasted with the fuller information available in relation to Supreme Court cases and the full summaries previously provided in JCPC cases.  We hope that this is a matter which can be dealt with for future cases.