The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net 

SUCCESSIVE governments have not formally responded to more than 30,000 crown land grant applications, lawyer Fred Smith claimed yesterday. 

He made the statement while announcing to The Tribune that a new non-profit organisation called Crown Land for Bahamians (CLB) has been established to systematically address issues relating to crown land in the country for the first time in the nation’s history. 

The organisation will raise awareness of key issues and provide legal representation to people seeking to sue the Prime Minister for not responding to crown land applications in a timely manner or for neglecting his legal responsibility to consider only legally relevant matters when deciding whether to grant crown land. 

Crown land is held in trust by the state, with the Prime Minister alone being the statutory trustee of the land. 

Mr Smith said: “The CLB was recently incorporated and it is intended to highlight the perversion of foreign developers being given crown land for nothing whereas there are thousands and thousands of Bahamians who have for decades applied for crown land and have not even had the courtesy of a response.”

“This is a new day and age in the Bahamas,” he said. “The new organisation will be suing the government for individual Bahamians for their entitlement. The new NGO will be setting up a register of applications and inviting all those who have made applications to register with CLB so that we could appreciate the extent of government abuse of our own Bahamian people.

“Under law, the Prime Minister cannot ignore applications. In deciding whether to grant or not, he could only take into account legally relevant factors and he cannot take into account legally irrelevant factors and the decision must be based on rational grounds and he cannot act arbitrarily or politically. He must exercise his power for the benefit of the Bahamas - and the Bahamas consists of 375,000 Bahamian citizens.”

In April, Acting Director of Land and Surveys Richard Hardy told The Tribune that his department receives about five to ten applications for crown land daily. However, when asked how many people have been granted crown land so far in 2014, he said he would have to take instructions from the Prime Minister about whether that information should be given.

Mr Smith said: “Despite enquiries by journalists, the department has refused to make available the statistics, again demonstrating the need for a Freedom of Information Act. Why the secret? What can possibly be the reason for our Prime Minister to refuse to tell people how many applications have been made, who have made them and for where?

“We are not children in our own country, but mature adults who can vote and have rights. I call on them to reveal how many applications have been made, how many have been granted, how many haven’t been answered and how many are outstanding.”

“If you are entrusted with a statutory discretion, you cannot refuse or fail to use it and just not answer,” he said. “We are entitled to have a response within a reasonable amount of time. In the absence of specific time limits, the Courts would impose reasonable time periods.”

CLB will be a marketplace for information on crown land, Mr Smith said, adding that, if necessary, people should sue the Prime Minister collectively rather than as individuals because that way they would be less likely to suffer victimisation. 

Mr Smith claimed that some people have been waiting decades for a response to their crown land applications. 

“Crown land is like federal land in the US and should be used by the government to promote the creation of wealth for Bahamians,” he said. “If every Bahamian was given acres of crown land throughout the Bahamas, overnight Bahamians would become in many instances very wealthy.

“Land never loses its value and it is extremely important for people to begin to understand that the government is the trustee for the beneficiaries and people who have applied for crown land or who want to do development should clamour and make noise and demand that their rights as a beneficiary are respected.”