Judge rules for safari eco-park on kangaroos

A court has ordered the chief game warden to reconsider his decision not to grant Animals for Education Ltd a permit to import two female red kangaroos from Canada.

The company runs the Safari Eco Park in Chaguaramas.

Making the order on Friday was Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell, who declared that his refusal to grant the permit was “unreasonable, procedurally unfair and/or procedurally improper.

The judge also quashed the decision of the chief game warden made on February 20, 2018.

Animals for Education has been allowed to import a number of wild animals, including kangaroos, in the past to be kept at its safari park.

The company educates the public about the conservation of native and exotic animals. It applied for an Intention to Import permit on May 10, 2017, to bring in two more kangaroos, but the application was ignored for several months and then refused on February 20, 2018.

Animals for Education challenged chief game warden Courtney Park’s decision on the grounds that he took into account irrelevant considerations and was procedurally unfair when he made his decision.

“My finding in this matter is that the claimant has, by cogent evidence and submissions, successfully established a valid challenge to the defendant's decision. However, this success is based solely on the narrow ground of lack of procedural fairness,” the judge said in her decision, given on Friday at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.

Animals for Education was represented by Rajiv Persad, John Heath, Elena Da Silva, Laurissa Mollenthiel and Lionel Luckhoo. The chief game warden was represented by Karlene Seenath, Ronelle Hinds and Amrita Ramsook.

In its defence, attorneys for the chief game warden argued that there was no failing on his part to take into account the information that came to his attention when he made his decision.

The reasons given for denying the application for the permit were that there was a review of the eco-park operations and inspectors were denied entry to the site; Park was waiting on a review by the Planning Ministry of the use of the site; and that there was an unresolved legal issue between the company and the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) over the lease of the site.

Another reason was that the Minister of Agriculture, on September 28, 2016, directed that no approvals should be given for permits for wildlife for the eco-park and previous approvals should be revoked.

The company complained it was never made aware of the directive from the minister, and the unresolved lease issue were irrelevant.

Park admitted the reasons for refusals were not given to the company and that “he never thought” to ask Animals for Education’s director Raymond Habib about the CDA lease issue.

He also said he was going to grant the permit and had already signed it when the minister’s directive came to his attention.

The company’s argument that Park did not give the company an opportunity to be heard and was procedurally unfair found favour with the judge, who held that information the company could have provided would have been relevant to the decision.

“In light of the foregoing, there is merit to the submission of counsel for the claimant that the defendant's decision must be quashed. This is so because it was arrived at without procedural fairness, it failed to take into account relevant information that could have been received from the claimant,” the judge said.

However, she said the eco-park operator did not prove, on a balance of probabilities that the minister’s letter and the CDA’s lease concerns were irrelevant or unreasonably considered by Park, since there are no statutory underpinnings governing what the chief game warden was to take into account in making his decision.