The Privy Council released two judgments last week, from The Bahamas and Bermuda.
In Bain & Anor v Rolle [2025] UKPC 49, the Board struck out the appeal without proceeding to a full hearing, on the basis that the appellant did not establish the exceptional circumstances necessary for the Board to depart from its established practice of not disturbing concurrent findings of fact in the courts below. The Board also declined to hear a further argument based on a point of law that had not been raised at the Court of Appeal. The only potentially wider point arising from this judgment is the Privy Council’s statement that the challenge to the first-instance judge’s findings based on the four year delay in handing down judgment after hearing the evidence is no different than any other argument seeking to challenge the reliability or accuracy of the judge’s factual finding.
On 8 October, the Board released The Corporation of Hamilton v Attorney General of Bermuda & Anor [2025] UKPC 50, a constitutional case between the entity that administers Bermuda’s capital city and the island’s central government. The Board was asked to determine several constitutional issues surrounding the central government’s enactment of legislation that effectively transferred control of the Corporation to the central government. The primary issue was whether section 1 of the Bermuda Constitution is merely introductory or creates rights that are independently and directly enforceable. The Board concluded that the section is preambular and does not create freestanding and enforceable rights. Some commentators have already drawn a distinction between how constitutional provisions worded similarly to section 1 have been interpreted differently by the Privy Council and the Caribbean Court of Justice.
No new judgments are scheduled for this week, but the Board has two oral hearings scheduled:
- On 14 October, Rubis Bahamas Ltd v Russell returns for a hearing on the merits before a panel of seven justices. This past March, the Board determined that Rubis’s appeal from the Bahamian Court of Appeal was as of right. Now, the Board will be expected to deal with the scope of the rule in Rylands v Fletcher that imposes strict liability for the escape of a dangerous substance during non-natural use of land: (a) whether the rule imposes strict liability on a landowner/lessor who does not occupy the land or own/control the dangerous substance, and (b) whether storage of fuel underground is a non-natural use of land for the purposes of the rule. The Board’s decision on these important common law questions will have application beyond The Bahamas, so will be watched closely and explains the seven-member panel.
- On 16 October, the Board will hear a Mauritius tax dispute in Director General, Mauritius Revenue Authority v Claude Didier de Sennville & Ors. The case will determine whether, on a proper construction of the Income Tax Act 1995, the calculation of taxable profit from the sale of 93 development lots should take into account the historical acquisition cost, or the value of the land just before its development.