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Trinity's Constable says he fears the legal costs arising from the invoking of an ancient injunction to halt branchage work will be "completely disproportionate" to what originally sparked the dispute.
Philip Le Sueur has called a parish assembly meeting on Tuesday evening at which he will outline the potential impact on parish finances after a landowner used the Clameur de Haro to stop work on a road adjoining her land.
The raising of the Clameur, which has been enshrined in Jersey law for hundreds of years and involves a "wronged" individual issuing a public cry while down on one knee, led to a Royal Court hearing on 22 November.
The court ruled that parishioner Nikki de Gruchy had wrongly raised the Clameur following a dispute in which she claimed Rue Becq, where the parish contractor had been seeking to carry out branchage work, had been illegally widened and encroached on her land. Her action was described during the hearing by Solicitor General Matthew Jowitt as "a flight of legal vanity" and a £1,000 was imposed.
The costs of the court hearing and the legal preparations leading up to it have yet to be resolved, leading Constable Le Sueur to include the matter on the agenda for the parish assembly.
"As a public authority we have duties we have to carry out under the 1914 Loi sur La Voirie [the so-called "branchage law"] and that's what we have tried to do," he said. "It's an unfortunate situation."
Pictured: Constable Philip Le Sueur.
The Constable said he was not prepared to give an estimate of the potential scale of the parish's legal costs before outlining this detail to the assembly, but feared the sum would be "completely disproportionate" to what had originally sparked the dispute.
Parishioners will be asked to agree that all costs be met from public reserves, pending a decision by the court about the costs incurred by the parish in defending its position, as well as by the Crown in bringing the case.
Tuesday's meeting, due to start at 7pm, will also elect 13 parish officials and consider a proposal to transfer £25,000 from parish reserves to cover costs resulting from Storm Ciarán.
Constable Le Sueur said there were several instances of damage requiring repair work, but that the potential financial impact of the Clameur case was his main concern.
The Parish Assembly agenda can be found here.
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