The Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) yesterday was ordered to repay over $65 million in exit fees collected from maxi-taxi operators for the use of the City Gate facility. In a landmark decision, the Judicial Committee of the London Privy Council agreed four to one that the Government breached the constitutional rights of the appellants by imposing the $1 charge for each exit of the facility. The judgment reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal and affirmed the earlier ruling of Justice Mustapha Ibrahim. Essentially, this means that in addition to repaying the exit fees, an immediate stop was to be placed on the fees. It was a fee imposed on maxi taxi operators while control of the facility was put in the hands of the PTSC – the operators' main competitor.
The PTSC was also given the responsibility for managing City Gate and the power to charge members of the association for its use. Yesterday, Lord Brown, in his dissenting judgment, said the agreement not to impose charges in 1997 could not be held against the Government for eternity. Lord Phillips, Lady Hale, Sir John Dyson and Sir Malachy Higgins, however, allowed the appeal. Delivering the majority judgment, Dyson said the control of the City Gate facility and the imposition of the exit fee were clearly inconsistent with the promise Government had made to the association. He added: "Where an authority is considering whether to act inconsistently with a representation or promise which it has made and which has given rise to a legitimate expectation, good administration as well as elementary fairness demands that it takes into account the fact that the proposed act will amount to a breach of the promise.
"Put in public law terms, the promise and the fact that the proposed act will amount to a breach of it are relevant factors which must be taken into account." He added that the Government had not appreciated the effect of the earlier promises in appointing PTSC controller of the facility. He said: "It was, therefore, incumbent on the Government to show that it had taken into account the fact that the effect of the 1997 Regulations was to breach the earlier promises. "This it has signally failed to do. It is by no means self-evident that the Government would have appreciated that the 1997 Regulations were in breach of the representations." The action was brought by maxi taxi operators Francis Paponette, Jhairam Balkaran, Ashbert Edwards and Alphonso Ashworth Williams.
They challenged the Court of Appeal's decision on February 23, 2009 in which Justices Margot Warner, Paula Mae Weekes and Alan Mendonca overturned the ruling of High Court Judge Mustapha Ibrahim to grant relief to the appellants. On June 20, 2008 Ibrahim had ruled the imposition of the exit fee was "unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect in that it contravenes their right and those they represent to the enjoyment of their property as guaranteed to them in section 4(a) of the Constitution." In 1995 the Government proposed moving the taxi stand for routes two and three from Broadway to a new location at the Port-of-Spain Transit Centre at City Gate in South Quay. The maxi-taxi owners and operators reluctantly agreed to the move only after the undertaking by then Minister of Works and Transport that control of the facility would not be vested in the PTSC or the National Insurance Property Development Co Ltd.
The facility was supposed to be put in the care of the association. Instead, PTSC took over the management and control of City Gate in 1998. Initially, members of the association were not charged for its use but since August 2001, they have been required to buy a card which is used to activate barriers at the exit and to pay a fee of $1 for each exit journey. Three-quarters of the user fee is retained by the PTSC and one quarter is given to the association. Peter Knox, QC, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, and Robert Strang represented the appellants, while Alan Newman, QC, appeared for the Attorney General.
