The Court of Ap­peal has ruled that the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA).

De­liv­er­ing a judge­ment yes­ter­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, Gre­go­ry Smith and Mal­colm Holdip dis­missed TSTT’s ap­peal over the de­ci­sion of a High Court Judge to up­hold a law­suit from po­lit­i­cal and so­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj on the is­sue.

Ma­haraj brought the law­suit in Feb­ru­ary 2017 af­ter the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider re­fused his re­quest un­der the FOIA to dis­close in­for­ma­tion on its man­age­ment struc­ture, salaries and its share­hold­er agree­ment.

Ma­haraj claimed that he was in­ter­est­ed in the in­for­ma­tion as TSTT is in­di­rect­ly fund­ed by tax­pay­ers, who have a vest­ed in­ter­est in its fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty.

High Court Judge David Har­ris ini­tial­ly re­fused Ma­haraj leave to pur­sue the ju­di­cial re­view claim be­fore an­oth­er pan­el of the Ap­peal Court re­versed his de­ci­sion.

In De­cem­ber 2018, Jus­tice Har­ris up­held Ma­haraj’s law­suit, as he ruled that TSTT is a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty which is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the leg­is­la­tion, which gives cit­i­zens the right to re­quest in­for­ma­tion from pub­lic au­thor­i­ties and State com­pa­nies.

TSTT was or­dered to re­con­sid­er Ma­haraj’s dis­clo­sure re­quest in light of the judge­ment, but the com­pa­ny ap­pealed.

To de­cide the case, the ap­peal pan­el had to con­sid­er TSTT’s cor­po­rate his­to­ry.

The com­pa­ny was formed in 1991 by the merg­er of the T&T Tele­phone Com­pa­ny (TEL­CO) and T&T Ex­ter­nal Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (TEX­TEL). The Gov­ern­ment held a 51 per cent stake while Ca­ble and Wire­less held the re­main­der.

In 2000, the Gov­ern­ment as­signed its stake in TSTT to Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (NEL), which al­so holds its stakes in oth­er lo­cal com­pa­nies such as Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM).

In the ap­peal, Ma­haraj’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, point­ed out that in 2014, the Gov­ern­ment was es­sen­tial­ly giv­en to­tal con­trol of TSTT, as the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) sus­pend­ed the rights of Ca­ble and Wire­less af­ter it ac­quired Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al Inc, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lim­it­ed, which trades as TSTT’s com­peti­tor Flow.

Ca­ble and Wire­less was al­so or­dered to re­move its di­rec­tors from TSTT’s board un­til it di­vest­ed its share­hold­ing.

In the judge­ment, Jus­tice Smith not­ed that in 2013, an­oth­er judge had con­sid­ered whether the Gov­ern­ment ef­fec­tive­ly con­trolled TSTT, as the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance con­trols its 66 per cent stake in NEL and ruled that it did not.

While Jus­tice Smith con­sid­ered Ram­lo­gan’s point on the TATT’s sus­pen­sion, he ruled that it did not prove that the Gov­ern­ment was in con­trol, as there was no ev­i­dence that NEL was an in­ter­me­di­ary of the Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Smith up­held Ma­haraj’s case based on Ram­lo­gan’s sub­mis­sion that a no­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Gazette from 2020 an­nounced that Cab­i­net had ap­proved the ap­point­ment of Sean Roach as TSTT chair­man and oth­er Gov­ern­ment di­rec­tors.

He said al­though the no­ti­fi­ca­tion was not con­sid­ered by Jus­tice Har­ris, it could not be ig­nored by him and his col­leagues, as the Gazette served as of­fi­cial no­ti­fi­ca­tion on be­half of the State.

“If the in­for­ma­tion in the Gazette is ig­nored, our analy­sis of who is in ef­fec­tive con­trol of TSTT would pro­duce a high­ly ar­ti­fi­cial re­sult. In fact, it would be a re­sult that would fly in the face of com­mon sense,” he said.

De­spite his rul­ing in the case, Jus­tice Smith not­ed that TSTT’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion as a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty in terms of the FOIA could change in the fu­ture if the Gov­ern­ment was to ei­ther di­vest it­self of all or a greater part of its ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­ing or cede its pow­er to ap­point the com­pa­ny’s board.

Ma­haraj was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Chelsea Stew­art, Alana Ram­baran and Dr Che Din­di­al.

Dr Claude Den­bow, Don­na Den­bow and Jerome Ra­j­coomar rep­re­sent­ed TSTT.