Seychelles Planning Authority needs to be consistent and lawful in its decisions
In a front page article entitled “Meeting between the Planning Authority and private operators turns stormy”, the daily Today newspaper quoted the Chairman of the SCCI during the meeting as complaining that the Planning Authority applies “double standards” in their decisions.
According to the Constitution of the Third Republic everyone is equal before the law. Article 27 of the Seychellois Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms says: Every person has a right to equal protection of the law including the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set out in this Charter without discrimination on any ground except as is necessary in a democratic society. Clause (1) shall not preclude any law, programme or activity which has as its object the amelioration of the conditions of disadvantaged persons or groups.
The principle underlying the Seychellois Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms is that the citizen is free to do anything that the law does not forbid, whereas the Government (through its officials) can only do what the law allows it to do. The Constitution also provides for a law that is necessary in a democratic society (an important qualification for its legitimacy) which may limit some of the freedoms guaranteed by the Charter in certain specific circumstances. The planning laws fall into this category.
The laws which established the concept of planning permission and building permit, promulgated in the early seventies when fast pace tourism development started following the opening of the international airport, predates the Third Republic. Whilst one can assume that these laws satisfy the Third Republic’s constitutional principle of a law which is necessary in a democratic society, it does not say that officials may discriminate against anyone in the application of the law. Sadly this was the case under the one-party state, when there was no protection of fundamental rights in the constitution.
Some officials unfortunately continue to apply the methods their predecessors used under the one-party state in their decision making process when discrimination on the ground of political affiliation, etc., were regularly practiced. The worst culprits today, it seems, are the officials of the Planning Authority who, when making decisions, make their own ad-hoc rules as they go along to suit particular applicants or projects rather than apply the law as it stands without fear or favour. As a result their decisions are full of inconsistencies and more often than not, blatantly discriminatory in nature.
Everyone, it seems, is powerless to compel them to conform with or justify their decisions in terms of what the statutes say, even the courts. A case in point is the treatment of Mr Alwyn Talma who is still unable to go ahead with his tourism project despite a judicial review, including from the highest court of the land, establishing that the decision originally made to deny him planning permission for his project was not based on established law, therefore null and void.
A non-government establishment or private individual may apply double standards when dealing with members of the pubic and get away with it. A double standard is an issue of ethics; weights and measures. Whilst a person in his or her private capacity may apply a double standard when dealing with other people, this is not so for a government official who must apply the law equally when dealing with citizens, even where there is an element of discretion.
When a government official uses his authority to deny a citizen a service or right under the law whilst granting the same to another, it is not double standard, it is discrimination. The Constitution outlaws discrimination on any ground. Hence, a government official could be prosecuted for practicing discrimination. Under the Constitution the government (through its officials) has authority not power.
by Paul Chow who was a member of the Constitutional Commission which drafted the Constitution of the Third Republic
Editors note:
The Seychelles Planning Authority makes decisions regarding development such as housing, hotels, industrial facilities and so forth as well as land use under the authority of Town and Country Planning Act and subsidiary legislation. The Planning Authority’s decisions therefore impacts on the natural environment. )
