By RAYMOND KONGWA, Guardian Senior Reporter

raymond@nasguard.com

A lobby of residents and homeowners fighting to stop construction of a high-end resort and residential enclave on Guana Cay, Abaco was ordered to post $100,000 yesterday or see their legal fight come to an end.

The Court of Appeal ordered the Save Guana Cay Reef Association to deposit the money, which lawyers for the Passerine Development have assessed as the cost of legal fees they have been awarded for the controversial proceedings.

The lobby was ordered yesterday to pay the amount by May 10 or have its appeal of a trial judge's dismissal of a judicial review of Government's sale of land to the developers, dismissed.

If the appeal against that decision is dismissed, the lobby is required to pay costs, which the developer's lead attorney, Michael Barnett, has assessed.

Lobby attorney Fred Smith had appealed the trial judge's grant of costs to the developers and also sought an injunction against a ruling by the trial judge that the development continue.

After Smith failed to convince Justices of Appeal that the order for costs should be dismissed on the basis that the issue was of serious public importance and the lobby was a grassroots organization with little funding, he submitted that $25,000 was a fitting amount for Passerine's fees.

But, the Justices of Appeal dismissed that notion, reminding Smith that he had received more for costs in at least one trial where he had not even prepared the case.

Said Court of Appeal President Dame Joan Sawyer: "25,000 seems a joke, Mr Smith."

He eventually offered to pay $50,000 but that, too, was rejected by Barnett, who insisted the work he and a junior attorney put into the case at trial and for the appellate process was worth the $100,000.

Once it was clear the Justices of Appeal would not budge on the amount, Smith asked the court for more than 14 days to try and raise the $100,000.

Dame Joan insisted, however, that the money be paid in the prescribed time, warning that otherwise "the appeal will fall by the wayside."