Court of Appeals Dismissed BEL's Appeal

BEL may be coming off its worst financial year ever and to make matters worse, it also lost in court yesterday. The Court of Appeals didn’t even need to hear counter-arguments to dismiss the case brought by BEL challenging a 2008 amendment to the byelaws made by the Public Utilities Minister Melvin Hulse. He did it by statutory instrument and BEL’s argument was that they should have been consulted before he signed the SI. The company’s claim was that because Hulse did not consult, that made the SI unlawful. But the Court of Appeal judges were not swayed by the argument and dismissed the appeal.
The legality of the Hulse SI has now been confirmed by two courts and both parties will go back before Justice Hafiz at the end of July to argue BEL’s appeal of the PUC’s June 2008 final decision.