RICHARD LORD

The mat­ter was brought to the courts by then Op­po­si­tion MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who pro­vid­ed le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the squat­ters. Jus­tice Gob­in ruled that the LSA had no le­gal au­thor­i­ty to de­mol­ish the homes of the squat­ters. But Mooni­lal said on Fri­day that de spite the rul­ing, "it is vi­tal­ly im­por­tant, Mr Speak­er, that squat­ters in no way be­lieve that they now have the right to squat or that it is le­gal."

He said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment will deal with the chal­lenges raised in Jus­tice Gob­in's rul­ing. Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment would move quick­ly to amend the Land Set­tle­ments Act, the State Lands Act, the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act and the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Act. He said the ac­tions tak­en by the LSA were the re­sult of breach­es of the law by the for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment.