THE Office of the Attorney-General and the Management of the MMA/ADA have filed appeals against two recent rulings of Chief Justice Roxane George in relation to lands aback No 40 and Seafield Villages, on the West Coast Berbice.

In the face of legal challenges, the CJ had upheld the legality of leases given by President Donald Ramotar in 2014 and 2015 to several farmers in West Coast Berbice. The CJ had done so after the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA) had cancelled these State land leases of 2014. Then when in 2016, President David Granger revoked these leases, she subsequently ruled that the President’s revocation of these leases had been unlawful.

In her ruling, the CJ had stated that those farmers’ leases granted by President Donald Ramotar constituted property under Article 142 of the Constitution, and that President Granger’s revocation of those leases amounted to depriving the applicants of property without compensating them, as noted in Article 142 of the Constitution.

The CJ had then granted the 2014 leaseholders a conservatory order which prohibited the MMM-ADA, its officers, or any other State official from entering upon, remaining, occupying or interfering with the Applicant’s quiet and peaceful possession, occupation and enjoyment of lease of State land for agriculture purpose as issued under the relevant laws.

The appeals by the AG and the MMA/ADA against these two rulings state that the relief sought from the Court of Appeal is that the CJ’s decisions in both cases be wholly set aside, reversed and/or discharged, and that the Appellants be awarded costs “in this court and the Court below”.

Meanwhile, officials of the Seafield Co-operative Land Society and No. 40 Farmers Co-operative Society who are supporting the appeals are hoping for a speedy and successful hearing, since they feel that an injustice was done them by President Donald Ramotar when, in 2014 and 2015, he gave out leases to their lands to persons who were not members of the Societies.

Mr Patrick Hamilton, of the No. 40 Farmers Co-operative Society, said that the lands handed out by President Ramotar in the 2014 leases had been occupied by the two registered Co-operative Societies for over three decades.

These Co-operative Societies remained registered and developed, and maintained and paid for these lands through the decades up to the time in 2014 when they were arbitrarily seized from them by the Ramotar Administration and given out to other individuals in the form of 50-year leases.

“The 2014 actions of Mr Ramotar’s administration,” Hamilton said, “have resulted in deep social acrimony amongst villagers, numerous police interventions, enormous legal costs and a legacy of discord in our villages.”

He is of the view that President Granger’s revocation of the leases which were unfairly granted by the PPP/C Administration was justified, and that that Administration could have easily given his fellow villagers other lands without causing the conflicts that are ongoing as a result of the arbitrary seizure and reallocation of the Co-op lands.