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A legal fight involving a parishioner who invoked an ancient device to halt branchage has cost Trinity around £70,000.
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 Trinity resident 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, which took place last night.
He told parishioners that the Parish had received two invoices from Viberts, who represented them during the dispute, of £32,219.38 and £46,530.62. Around £70,000 of this sum was said to relate to the Clameur. Costs and disbursements relating to branchage issues in Rue Becq, meanwhile, were reported to total around £10,000.
An application is being made on behalf of the parish to ask that their legal costs are paid by Ms de Gruchy, the Constable said.
However, Constable Le Sueur noted that, while the parish will do its best to recover legal costs, some may either take a long time to come through – or be irrecoverable.
In the interim, parishioners agreed to approve the spending on legal fees, which are to be drawn from Trinity’s reserves.
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