CCJ allows appeal in Guyana land dispute case

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) Wednes­day de­liv­ered a rul­ing in an ap­peal con­cern­ing the own­er­ship and the right to pos­sess land in Guyana.

The CCJ, which is Guyana’s high­est and fi­nal court, had ex­am­ined whether a signed re­ceipt con­sti­tut­ed a bind­ing agree­ment for the sale of land in the case of Janet Has­san and Ro­manie Gou­veia. [

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the CCJ al­lowed the ap­peal in favour of Has­san and re­stored the tri­al judge’s or­der dis­miss­ing Gou­veia’s claim for pos­ses­sion.

The courtt heard that n 1990, Er­ic Sue signed a re­ceipt record­ing pay­ment of GUY$2,235 (One Guyana dol­lar=US$0.004 cents) by Has­san’s hus­band, Ab­dool Has­san, ‘for the use of’ the land”.

The re­ceipt record­ed ‘Full Pay­ment’ and con­tem­plat­ed the con­struc­tion of hous­es. It al­so stat­ed that the land was re­served for road straight­en­ing and that ‘no trans­port can be is­sued’. In Guyana, a ‘trans­port’ is a le­gal doc­u­ment that records own­er­ship of land or im­mov­able prop­er­ty, sim­i­lar to a ti­tle deed.

Gou­veia, the ex­ecutrix of Er­ic Sue’s es­tate and the trans­port­ed own­er of the land, brought an ac­tion for pos­ses­sion in the High Court. But the tri­al judge dis­missed her claim, find­ing that the re­ceipt was au­then­tic and was ev­i­dence of a bind­ing agree­ment for the sale of the land from Er­ic Sue to Ab­dool Has­san.

How­ev­er, the Court of Ap­peal re­versed that de­ci­sion, treat­ing the re­ceipt as a mere li­cence or per­mis­sion to oc­cu­py on­ly, and or­dered that Has­san give up pos­ses­sion on or be­fore De­cem­ber 1, 2025, and pay costs in the sum of GUY$175,000.

Has­san ap­pealed to the CCJ, and it held that the re­ceipt, read ob­jec­tive­ly and as a whole, ev­i­denced an agree­ment to sell the land.

The CCJ was sat­is­fied that the fac­tu­al ma­trix, the con­trac­tu­al con­text, and the tex­tu­al con­text, when tak­en to­geth­er, all led to the con­clu­sion that the Court of Ap­peal had fall­en in­to er­ror in con­stru­ing the re­ceipt as a mere li­cence.

The CCJ ruled that the Court of Ap­peal had placed un­due weight on par­tic­u­lar words with­out suf­fi­cient­ly con­sid­er­ing the wider fac­tu­al and con­trac­tu­al con­texts in which the re­ceipt was cre­at­ed.

In par­tic­u­lar, the CCJ not­ed that the reser­va­tion for straight­en­ing of the Es­se­qui­bo Road, and the undis­put­ed fact that Er­ic Sue was not the trans­port­ed own­er, pro­vid­ed a com­pelling ex­pla­na­tion as to why no trans­port could be is­sued.

The CCJ there­fore, al­lowed the ap­peal and re­stored the tri­al judge’s or­der dis­miss­ing Gou­veia’s claim for pos­ses­sion.

In ad­di­tion, al­though the Court of Ap­peal had, in a sep­a­rate ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore it, grant­ed per­mis­sion to Has­san to ap­peal to the CCJ, it had re­fused to grant a stay of the or­der that Has­san give up pos­ses­sion on or be­fore De­cem­ber 1, 2025. It al­so made an award of costs of GUY$300,000 against Has­san.

The CCJ re­versed that costs award, ob­serv­ing that the Court of Ap­peal had giv­en no rea­sons for an award ex­ceed­ing the costs of the main ap­peal, al­though the ap­pli­ca­tion was rou­tine and part­ly suc­cess­ful.

The CCJ fur­ther not­ed that the award ap­peared ex­ces­sive and dis­pro­por­tion­ate, stress­ing that ar­bi­trary or sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate costs or­ders could un­der­mine ac­cess to jus­tice and pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness. Gou­veia was or­dered to re­pay the sum of GUY300,000 by De­cem­ber 3, 2026, and to pay Has­san’s stan­dard costs be­fore the CCJ and costs in the High Court and Court of Ap­peal. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)