What is wrong with the ratification of the Canouan lease?

by Dr Doris Debra Charles-Frederick, Pro Tempore Leader, National Liberation Movement

The welcomed noise caught my attention. There was another protest more than 30 years in the making. Voices from Canouan were not those of isolated individuals. This was about much more than access to the sea. In my ongoing research, I became pleasantly aware that I am also a direct descendant of my maternal Snagg family of Canouan, traceable to Sir William Snagg. Yes, I have proof of others too. The narrative tells us that he once owned a portion of Canouan along with other families, but that the Snagg family “bought them out”. Is this true? But every Vincentian who is concerned about finding their ancestral lineages know that we are truly one family on this island with many branches extending to other islands and within the diaspora.

I became deeply stirred.

Other narratives revealed that there was some “sort of conveyance of land” from the Snagg family and others to the government of the day. A lease was signed in 1990 by the late Sir James Fitz Allen Mitchell, the then Prime Minister. It is presumed that the lessor (government) and the lessee (investors/Canouan Resorts Development Ltd.) agreed that at the end of the leased period, all property would be returned to the lessor. Some believed that the leased property was permitted to be sold as freehold. Isn’t this arrangement a legal ‘anomaly’ for want of a better expression? Can leasehold (leased property) be sold as freehold property? What about the covenant of seisin? Who has the right to convey title?

There is that vexing issue of the ratification of the lease in question and the enactment of legislation in this country to reflect the legal position of such ratification. A question arises as to what was wrong or right with the ratification of this lease. Is it significant to the debate that Canouan was a Crown Grant and conveyed by the Sovereign to a family or series of families prior to 1925? If so, was the conveyance duly acquired/authorised by the government of the day? The UK Law of Property prior to 1925 applicable to colonies like St. Vincent and the Grenadines is at best complex. Land acquisition and distribution in these islands are still subject to legal scrutiny and debate.

The statement “Omnis ratihabitio retrotrahitur et mandato priori aequiparatur” translates to, “ every ratification is dragged back and treated as equivalent to a prior authority” according to a Professor Mechem. So, what was equivalent to a prior authority? Were there some ‘acts or facts’ which the lessee (investors) may be precluded from denying that the lessor who purported to bind him/them had no legal authority to create the lease ratification in the first place? Is this nation experiencing the effects of an ‘anomaly’ of historic proportions? Canouan was a crown grant according to the oldest magistrate who swears to this.

As the pro tempore leader of the National Liberation Movement, our party is seeking the assistance of some of our bright legal minds of this country, within the diaspora and beyond to engage on the following:-
Is the Canouan Resorts Development Ltd Lease Ratification Act No 4 of 1990 and amended, a legal document which is unlawful in its substantive nature?

Does the sea fall into the category of easements as incorporeal rights and are transferable and may have been legally but unlawfully conveyed to investors as part of the deal (lease)?

Does it mean that ratifying the lease is retroactively enforced, binding both lessor and lessee who ratified the lease to the original [lease date] or the date on which the Crown Grant came to be in possession/ownership by the lessor, not just the date it was ratified?

Is it not true that for ratification to be effective, the lessor must expressly contract or lease as agent for a principal ‘so to speak’ (the original owner of the land) who is in existence (alive) and competent to contract?

Is it not true that the true owners of the land in Canouan must be competent to contract (lease) not only at the time the lessor acts but also when the true owners ratifies the lessor’s act?

Will it not be necessary to take the matter to the court to ascertain the validity of the Lease Ratification Act in question?
Does Parliament have the legal right to create legislation such as a lease ratification Act that now forms part of the laws of St Vincent and the Grenadines?

What precedence has been set by the Lease Ratification Act No 4 of 1990 as amended thereafter?

Does it appear that the government has signalled its intention to waive its rights to acquire the property [inclusive of all that leased property now under the management of Canouan Resorts Development Ltd.] compulsorily, [if it comes to that] contrary to s. 6 (1) of our Constitution?

Aren’t there sufficient brilliant brains among the police service, the civil servants, within the judiciary at home or abroad to lend clarity to this vexing issue? ‘They’ should not continue to laugh at us as if we are incapable of legal thought and analysis. Begin again at the beginning. Open up the discussions in the public domain.

Where are our legal luminaries?