CCJ DENIES SPECIAL LEAVE APPLICATION MADE BY EVICTED TENANT
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Today, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) published its judgment denying special leave in the Barbadian case of Ramnarace Ramassar v Stella Scantlebury [2023] CCJ 7 (AJ) BB in which Ramassar had sought permission to appeal an ejection order obtained against him by his landlord. Ramassar was a tenant at a property in Wilcox Hill, Christ Church Barbados, and Ms Scantlebury, was his landlord. On 7 October 2021, Ms Scantlebury sought and obtained an order in the Magistrate’s Court for his ejection from the rented premises. Ramassar’s appeal against the ejection order was dismissed by the Court of Appeal which also awarded costs to Ms Scantlebury. Ramassar then sought leave from the Court of Appeal to appeal to the CCJ, but that application was denied.
After two administratively defective applications for special leave were filed in the CCJ and refused, Ramassar made a third application on 3 April 2023, which was accepted by the Court. This was an urgent application for special leave to appeal out of time and as a poor person and presented supporting affidavits.
The application complained that there was a breach of natural justice because the very same panel of the Court of Appeal which heard the initial appeal on 18 October 2022, also decided on 18 January 2023, to refuse leave to appeal to the CCJ. Ramassar also argued that he had an appeal as of right as the value of the property exceeded BDS $18,250.00; and, further, that the interpretation by the Court of Appeal of Section 13 of the Landlord and Tenant (Registration of Tenancies) Act Cap 230A raised a matter of general public importance, especially in relation to the production of a Certificate of Registration.
The CCJ, in a judgment delivered by Justice Anderson, took the view that the value of the rented property was entirely irrelevant as the applicant chose the route of seeking to obtain special leave and, therefore, had to satisfy the requirements for the grant of special leave. The CCJ found that there was no issue of public importance raised in the application. There was no evidence that the Certificate of Registration was not valid as at the date of the tenancy; the respondent had given the entirely plausible explanation that the Certificate had been lost and that she had obtained a replicate copy from the Government Registration Department. It would take a strong case to justify opening the door to considering the interpretation of Section 13 in the way urged by the applicant. This case was not such a case.
Additionally, the application targeted the refusal of leave by the Court of Appeal instead of the substantive decision. Justice Anderson took the view that the applicant appeared to have attempted to pursue leave to appeal on both procedural and substantive grounds. Procedurally, he wished to appeal the refusal of leave by the Court of Appeal and substantively, he wished to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal as it related to the interpretation of the Act. In either case, the application failed. It is trite law that an application for special leave may not pursue an appeal against the refusal of leave by the Court of Appeal. And even if the Court exercised its discretion and afforded a generous interpretation to the application as one to appeal the substantive decision of the Court of Appeal, the applicant failed to satisfy the test for special leave, as there was no arguable point of law of general public importance.
In a concurring judgment, Justice Barrow pointed out that the CCJ’s Appellate Jurisdiction Rules, 2021 make express provision for a special leave application to be made where leave to appeal to the CCJ is refused by the Court of Appeal. The CCJ has laid down in the clearest of terms and in a number of instances that there is no appeal to this Court against the refusal by the Court of Appeal to grant leave to appeal. Therefore, the application was incapable of succeeding.
On these bases, the application for special leave was dismissed, with costs to the respondent.
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