The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay, also known as Save The Bays, has filed an application in the Supreme Court to block a request from the registrar general for its financial records, a move it says was “driven by the government’s animosity”.

Acting Registrar General Diedre Clarke-Maycock issued a written notice to the group on March 27 that requires it to produce documents evidencing compliance with regulations governing non-profit companies within 21 days - which expires today.

In case documents filed on April 13, however, the group posits that the notice is an attempt by the government to obtain “by lawful means” information that had previously been restrained by the courts in a bid to discredit the organisation.

The group has launched four sets of judicial review proceedings in relation to alleged unauthorised construction and Crown land reclamation activities of Lyford Cay fashion mogul Peter Nygard at Nygard Cay, and the failure of the government to take appropriate action, including the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the Town Planning Committee, the Director of Physical Planning and others.

Records requested by the registrar general include: the organisation’s purpose, objective, and activities; identity of persons who control or direct the activities of the organisation, including senior officers, directors, and trustees; financial records that show and explain the transactions within and outside The Bahamas and that show that the funds of the organisation have been used in a manner consistent with its objective and activities; and the source of the gross annual income of the organisation.

The Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay was registered in 2013 as a non-profit company limited by guarantee, and the organisation is arguing that the 2014 regulations do not retroactively impact pre-existing non-profits nor were there any transitional provisions.

It further points out that the only circumstance provided that would empower the registrar general to request the documents is to assess the extent, if any, to which the registered non-profit is being used to “assist terror financing”.

“The notice is directed squarely at using the anti-terrorist regulations at regulation 13 of the regulations to obtain by lawful means - and therefore to deploy - the same or similar financial and other information and records that the government has been restrained from holding or deploying by the permanent injunction granted in the constitutional action,” noted an affidavit filed by a Coalition Director, Joseph Darville.

“The various proceedings on foot between the coalition and the government have become politicised and acrimonious. The government has demonstrated that it has an interest in getting its hands on and being able to deploy information (in particular financial records) in the hope that they may embarrass or discredit the Coalition.

“The government’s objective is manifestly to obtain a political advantage or an advantage in the litigation or to derail the litigation altogether by seeking to have the coalition removed from the Register of Companies, dissolve or struck off, thus killing its corporate existence so that it is no longer a legal entity that can maintain the court actions against the government and Mr (Peter) Nygard.”

“The coalition has a real interest in protecting its confidential financial records from being deployed for political purposes to silence the coalition and frustrate its legitimate public interest objects and purposes. That interest was successfully defended by the coalition in bringing the constitutional action. In refusing to comply with the notice and in seeking to bring this judicial review the coalition is also defending that interest.”

The “constitutional action” refers to the ruling by Supreme Court Justice Indra Charles in August last year, which stated that Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald infringed on constitutional rights when he tabled the private emails of Save The Bays in Parliament, and therefore could not be protected by parliamentary privilege.

Mr Fitzgerald has appealed that ruling.