Court to hear case against JPS next June

 

THE legal challenge against the Jamaica Public Service's (JPS) monopoly on islandwide light and power distribution will be tried on June 26, 2012 in the Supreme Court.

The trial date was set during a hearing in the High Court Thursday.

The suit, which was filed in September, is being brought by a group of disgruntled JPS customers led by government Senator Dennis Meadows, and names as defendants the attorney general, the JPS and the Office of the Utilities Regulation (OUR).

In the suit, the claimants are seeking several declarations from the court, which, if successful, would revoke the JPS's 27-year All-Island Electricity Licence, and open up the market to other players.

The licence was granted by then Mining and Energy Minister Bobby Pickersgill on March 30, 2001, pursuant to Section 3 of the Electric Lighting Act. The licence was in 2007 extended for a further seven years on the recommendation of the OUR, pursuant to Section 4 of the Office of Utilities Regulation Act.

But the claimants -- which include advocates Betty Ann Blaine and Cryus Rousseau -- are asking the court to declare the granting of the JPS licence and the extension "illegal, null and void and of no effect".

In the event that the court so rules, the claimants are asking for a declaration that the JPS is operating without a licence, which is required by law, stipulated under Section of the Electric Lighting Act. Alternatively, the claimants are contending that Section 3 of the Electric Lighting Act does not empower the minister to "disenfranchise the prospective right of any person to apply for a licence to transmit electricity, whether for personal, public or commercial purposes".

JPS customers have for years been buckling under the strain of hefty electricity bills and have been calling for an alternative light and power provider to join the market. Recently, some of the complainants involved in the lawsuit have said they were forced out of business as a result of exorbitant electricity bills.