‘Whe he go find money?’

GATE OPENED: Tamarind Square in Port of Spain, home to several homeless people. Photo by Roger Jacob
GATE OPENED: Tamarind Square in Port of Spain, home to several homeless people. Photo by Roger Jacob

The homeless in Tamarind Square, Port of Spain want to know where one of their own, Hugh Bernard, will find money to pay the Port of Spain City Council’s lawyers, after he lost a case against the corporation over a decision to lock all the gates to the Square at nigthts.

“Whe he go find dat kind of money from? If he can’t find money for rent, he go find money for lawyers,” was how one homeless person responded to Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell’s order for Bernard to pay the legal costs of the city corporation’s lawyers including both Senior and Junior counsels.

Donaldson-Honeywell also denied Bernard an interim injunction preventing the corporation from locking the fifth gate at the square.

When Newsday visited Tamarind Square in downtown Port of Spain on Tuesday, Bernard was not around. Even before Newsday got the chance to ask a question, the homeless realised the media was on the ground.

One of Bernard’s colleagues who was lying next to a shack made of discarded chairs, asked, “What does this (court ruling) mean for us?”

Another said, “So he lost the case. Did he waste the court’s time? I don’t think so. Is that why they fined him? Because they think he will give up?” Inside the square were several makeshift shelters built out of bits of board, old furniture and cardboard all aimed at keeping out the elements.

The judge’s decision on Monday cleared the way for the council to adopt whatever measures it sees fit to protect the public from, ‘grossly unsanitary conditions.’

LOST CASE: Hugh Bernard, who on Monday lost his case against the Port of Spain City Corporation, is seen at his makeshift home in the Square.

In December 2015, the corporation erected a fence around the square and later, locks and chains were put on the gates. Four of the five gates were locked. The fifth has a padlock but has not yet been locked.

The lawsuit contended that if this gate is locked, the homeless would have nowhere left to go.

Bernard argued that this was unfair to him and other homeless people, as they would be denied entry into the square without any alternative arrangement for their accommodation.

In her ruling, Donaldson-Honeywell said there was no evidence that the corporation had decided to lock the gates to the square at night. She also found that the corporation did not limit the public’s use of the square in an unlawful manner, and that it had no duty to provide accommodation or facilities to displaced people. Nor did the homeless have a right to sleep in the square.

Representing the corporation was a battery of lawyers led by for former PNM Attorney General John Jeremie, SC, while Christopher Hamel-Smith, SC, represented Bernard pro bono (free of charge).

In seeking to rebut Jeremie’s insistence that Bernard be made to pay the full cost of the corporation’s legal fee, Hamel-Smith said the court ought not to send a message, “to the voiceless and downtrodden”, that the courts can therefore justice, can only be accessed by those with deep pockets. In the end, Justice Donaldson-Honeywell ruled that Bernard must pay the corporation lawyers’ fees which are to be assessed.

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"‘Whe he go find money?’"

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