Solicitor General Wilhelm Bourne yesterday told Supreme Court he had no evidence of the rationale behind a government ban on Bermudians selling their luxury homes to foreigners.

He also claimed that the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs is not bound by the controversial policy change he made last February, saying: ?He can depart from this policy at any time. It?s his policy and it?s in his hands.?

His point caused Puisne Justice Geoffrey Bell, to respond: ?Isn?t the public entitled to expect that if the Minister promulgates a policy it will be followed??

Mr. Bourne was presenting the government?s case against an action brought by the owners of $45million Tuckers Town house GoldenEye who are asking the judge to declare the policy void.

The long-standing rule prior to the change a year ago was that homes could be sold on the international market by Bermudians as long as they were above an Annual Rental Value fixed by the government to protect the local affordable housing stock. Now, this policy only applies to non-Bermudian property owners.

The judge, who appeared to be frustrated with the way the Solicitor General was presenting his case at times, repeatedly told him that he could not understand the relevance of the points he was making.

Mr. Justice Bell also reprimanded Mr. Bourne for wasting the court?s time telling him it was ?most unsatisfactory? that he was putting statements before him without the appropriate detail.

GoldenEye?s owners, Bermudian entrepreneurs Alan and Vera Rosa Marshall claim the ban has scuppered their ability to sell GoldenEye as no Bermudian can afford the house, which is said to be the most expensive on the local market.

Their lawyer, Saul Froomkin QC, told the court earlier this week that the policy discriminates against Bermudians since non-Bermudians can still sell their high-end homes on the international market.

He has also claimed that the previous policy gave his clients a ?legitimate expectation? that they would be able to sell GoldenEye to an international buyer ? which the court has heard would have boosted the government?s coffers to the tune of nearly $10 million through taxes and fees.

According to local speculation, high-profile names who had expressed interest in the house include international TV superstar Oprah Winfrey.

Presenting the government case yesterday Mr. Bourne said the government policy was made by the Minister of Labour Home Affairs and Public Safety in the public interest, which outweighed any expectation that the couple may have had.

Explaining this, he pointed out the scarcity of land in Bermuda and the fact that many people cannot afford homes, and said the policy was to ?look after the interests of the generations to come behind us?.

However, Mr. Justice Bell said that this was not sufficient to explain the rationale behind the policy decision.

?Mr. Froomkin has said if the Minister wanted to reduce the stock of housing available to non-Bermudians one very simple way for him to do that is to increase the ARV threshold (at which homes can be sold to foreigners) as he?s done for the past 15 or 20 years but for the minister to introduce a policy that he did and deprive Bermudians of the right that they previously had is not a rational way of dealing with the problem,? said the judge.

?What happens at the end of ?Billionaire?s Row? in Tuckers Town has no relevance to the homeless issue. They are completely unrelated issues.?

Mr. Bourne admitted there was ?no statement? of the rationale behind the Minister amending the long-standing existing policy in the way that he did but asked the judge to take ?judicial notice? of his point.

?The court should infer that the Minister acted in the public interest because that is his duty,? he added, to which Mr. Justice Bell responded: ?Just because the Minister has a public duty surely I cannot say that he must have exercised it properly.?

The case continues on Monday morning.