Grand Court Judge Richard Williams has awarded no costs in relation to a legal challenge made last year by Doctors Hospital against the government over duty waivers and other concessions given to Health City.
In a decision on costs delivered by the judge on Friday, 16 June, he said, as neither party “should be viewed as successful” in their submissions to the court, “this is a case in which no order for costs should be made”.
This confirmed his provisional decision to make no order for costs in his August 2022 ruling on the judicial review brought by Doctors Hospital. He told the parties in the case at the time that they could apply for a costs hearing.
They did apply, and a hearing was held in January this year. The following month, Williams delivered a ruling on that hearing, deciding to order no costs for either party. After this, Doctors Hospital then applied for costs and relief in relation to the January hearing for costs. In his latest judgment, Justice Williams again order no costs.
In the judicial review, Doctors Hospital challenged the government’s decision to give decades-long duty waivers to Health City, and later to agree to grant similar concessions to the Aster Caribbean Holdings Ltd. for a hospital it planned to build, without making such waivers available to Doctors Hospital.
Williams, in his ruling, said the granting of duty, stamp and work permit fee waivers to Health City for such long periods was “inappropriate”, though not unlawful. He also ruled that a government’s statutory power to refuse to waive duty was “unfettered” – meaning that subsequent governments are not bound indefinitely by an agreement made by a previous administration.
The judicial review also addressed the government’s lack of transparency in duty-waiver grants.
Doctors Hospital, appearing under the name CTMH Holdings, had asked the court to declare that government is obliged to publish a transparent statement of the criteria applied to such waivers.
While Williams, in his ruling, agreed that clarity would be derived from a criteria for waivers, he said it was not appropriate for the court to declare that government must publish a transparent statement of the considerations it applies when weighing whether to grant concessions.
Health City and Aster appeared as ‘interested parties’ at the judicial review hearing.
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