The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Wednesday ordered a woman to repay her brother more than one million EC dollars following the sale of land in Dominica a few years ago.
The CCJ, Dominica’s highest court, heard that Angel Andrew had given his sister, Gloria Shillingford power of attorney to sell the property belonging to him.
However, Andrew claimed that his sister made unauthorised payments to herself, her daughter and their cousin, Hilary Shillingford, with whom she had also entered into an exclusive agreement and had paid a commission.
The High Court in Dominica and the Court of Appeal had ordered her to repay him approximately EC$1.7 million and the CCJ in affirming the decisions of the lower courts also ordered that Ms. Shillingford pay her brother’s basic costs.
In the High Court, it was disclosed that Andrew was the registered proprietor of lands at Grand Savannah in the parish of St. Joseph, west of the capital, Roseau.
During an attempted sale of the lands to a company, Gloria was paid EC$821,040 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) in non-refundable deposits. The sale was never finalized by the company. It was alleged that Angel received EC$94,865.05 out of the deposits.
Gloria had also instructed the company to pay US$45,000.to her daughter.
The lands were eventually sold to a new buyer for EC$4.5 million with Angel receiving $2,564,170.20 from Gloria.
During the trial, High Court Judge, Justice Cottle, had found that the payments to Mr. Shillingford were made without authority and that the exclusive agreement was no more than a fiction concocted by him and Ms. Shillingford in an effort to withhold a substantial part of the proceeds of the sale from Andrew. The Court of Appeal agreed with High Court ruling and found that those payments were unauthorised. The CCJ said that the dominant issue of law in the courts below was that Ms. Shillingford had no authority to engage their cousin as an agent and grant him “the exclusive right to sell” the lands for a period of six months.
It said in Ms. Shillingford’s appeal at the CCJ, it was noted that she “no longer sought to reverse the findings of the Court of Appeal, but she sought to bypass them” so the appeal could go nowhere on the merit of the case.
The CCJ also examined Ms. Shillingford’s leading ground of appeal at the hearing which was that the trial should be voided because the judge had allowed the trial to proceed despite violations of procedural rules and that the witness statements for Mr. Andrews’ had been delivered late.
She also argued that the trial bundles had been delivered the night before the trial was to start.
But the CCJ noted that the trial transcript showed that at the beginning of the trial, Andrews’ attorney had disclosed the violations, had apologised for, and gave reasons for filing the trial bundles late. The attorneys for the other defendants, were fully heard on the matter.
The CCJ said that it found it striking that Ms. Shillingford’s counsel had not uttered a single word of protest.
In dismissing the appeal, the CCJ also ordered that the stay of execution pending appeal, granted by the Court of Appeal be removed, including the repayment for of the funds to Andrew.
I don’t believe in the CCJ at all,every country should respect the highest court in their land.If they have to go somewhere else for justice, that simple means, that you cannot managed your country affairs. It is a form of rebellious behaviour against the country laws, because of how the people was indoctrinated by our slaves masters. The people grew up with that kind of mentality, that they cannot makes a fair decision on the cases. They use to depend on their same slaves to give them justice, that is to show you how stupid they are.