It has be­come com­mon to see videos or state­ments be­ing post­ed con­cern­ing per­sons in au­thor­i­ty over­step­ping their pow­ers and/or ju­ris­dic­tion. Over time, we have all heard or seen, or have been vic­tims of, po­lice of­fi­cers, Li­cens­ing of­fi­cers, traf­fic war­dens, bailiffs, or oth­er such per­sons at­tempt­ing to over­step the bound­aries of their pow­er and func­tions.

Over the week­end, I saw count­less videos of a so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer be­ing evict­ed. I am un­fa­mil­iar with the par­ties but the sce­nario that was cap­tured is one I am fa­mil­iar with. It is slow­ly be­com­ing a norm for bailiffs and po­lice of­fi­cers to in­volve them­selves in pri­vate dis­putes, which can have dire con­se­quences. Their ac­tions are so con­cern­ing that it’s about time the pub­lic un­der­stands its rights in pri­vate land mat­ters.

Bailiffs and po­lice can de­liv­er let­ters, no­tices and/or le­gal doc­u­ments. There is noth­ing that pro­hibits them from as­sist­ing or be­ing re­tained to per­form such ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, with­out fur­ther au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the court, this is the ex­tent of their pow­ers, or, more specif­i­cal­ly, land-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

In 2000, the Par­lia­ment con­sid­ered pro­vi­sions of the pro­posed Bailiff Act. In con­sid­er­ing and draft­ing leg­is­la­tion, our Par­lia­ment seeks to cure a mis­chief. The mis­chief in this in­stance, as out­lined by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at that time, was the lack of reg­u­la­tion and su­per­vi­sion of the ac­tiv­i­ties of pri­vate bailiffs. This lack of con­trol had led to count­less ac­cu­sa­tions, com­plaints and con­cerns about bailiffs abus­ing their pow­ers, lead­ing to great prej­u­dice or in­jus­tice to pri­vate cit­i­zens.

The roles, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and func­tions of a bailiff is set out in the Bailiff Act Sec­tions 9 and 10 of the act pro­vides as fol­lows-:

9. (1) The func­tions of a bailiff un­der this Act are to—

(a) levy ex­e­cu­tion in ac­cor­dance with a judg­ment of a Judge of the Pet­ty Civ­il Court;

(b) serve doc­u­ments from a court of sum­ma­ry ju­ris­dic­tion;

(c) levy ten­ant’s goods for ar­rears of rent as pro­vid­ed for un­der the Land­lord and Ten­ant Or­di­nance; and

(d) re­pos­sess goods on hire pur­chase in ac­cor­dance with the Hire Pur­chase Act.

10. (1) No bailiff shall en­ter any premis­es for the pur­pos­es of car­ry­ing out any of his func­tions un­less he shows his li­cence and gives a signed copy of the form as set out in the Sched­ule to the oc­cu­pi­er of, or oth­er adult per­son on, the premis­es to­geth­er with a signed or cer­ti­fied copy of the doc­u­ment up­on which he has the au­thor­i­ty to per­form his func­tion on that oc­ca­sion.

Leg­is­la­tion in our coun­try usu­al­ly goes hand in hand with the de­ci­sions de­liv­ered by our judges.

To un­der­stand the man­ner in which Sec­tion 9 of the Bailiff Act should be con­sid­ered, Madam Jus­tice Jones (as she then was) in CV2012-02080 be­tween Shanazar Per­saud v Ashmed Taj­mool clar­i­fied that: “This act seeks to reg­u­late and li­cence bailiffs for the pur­pose of per­form­ing the func­tions as iden­ti­fied by sec­tion 9 of the act. It is with re­spect to those func­tions that a li­censed bailiff can claim the im­mu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed for the bailiff’s pro­tec­tion un­der the Pet­ty Civ­il Court Act. With re­spect to acts out­side of the am­bit of sec­tion 9, a bailiff, whether li­censed or not, has no spe­cial pro­tec­tion or im­mu­ni­ty.”

Sim­ply put, a bailiff who acts out­side of their func­tion can be held ac­count­able for their ac­tions.

The court’s po­si­tion in mat­ters re­lat­ing to land and/or tres­pass is clear. A bailiff and/or po­lice of­fi­cer and/or any per­son can­not law­ful­ly evict or re­move a per­son oc­cu­py­ing premis­es with­out the ben­e­fit of an or­der or di­rec­tion from the court.

A bailiff can­not at­tend a prop­er­ty with copies of deeds, re­ceipts or any oth­er doc­u­ment and con­tend they have le­gal doc­u­ments to evict a per­son. A per­son can on­ly be evict­ed and/or re­moved by a bailiff or po­lice of­fi­cer who has a court or­der.

Im­por­tant­ly, with­out a court or­der, the per­son­al ef­fects of the per­son be­ing evict­ed should not be re­moved from the prop­er­ty and placed out­side or on the side of the road. Should this be done and the per­son­al ef­fects be dam­aged, the bailiff, po­lice of­fi­cer and/or any per­son di­rect­ing them may be held li­able for dam­ages and be or­dered to pay com­pen­sa­tion.

In CV 2016-03388 be­tween Rishi­ram Christo­pher -v- The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ben­net 5,000 and Oth­ers, the claimant con­tend­ed he was evict­ed from his home by sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers. His per­son­al ef­fects were thrown from the house and dam­aged.

The po­lice ar­gued that they sim­ply served an evic­tion no­tice and the claimant de­cid­ed to im­me­di­ate­ly leave and re­moved his own items from the home. Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh (as he then was), in de­liv­er­ing his de­ci­sion, agreed with the claimant that his per­son­al items were un­law­ful­ly re­moved from his home by the po­lice who at­tempt­ed to evict him.

An or­der was made di­rect­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and the po­lice of­fi­cers to pay for the dam­ages to the items, to­geth­er with a sum for dam­ages for tres­pass.

It is clear that po­lice of­fi­cers and bailiffs who act out­side their func­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties can be sub­ject to civ­il lit­i­ga­tion and made to pay for their tres­pass and dam­ages to prop­er­ty. It should be un­der­stood that even a li­censed bailiff can­not, on their own, ac­cord en­ter prop­er­ty and evict per­sons or re­move their per­son­al ef­fects with­out the ben­e­fit of a court or­der.

Peo­ple should seek im­me­di­ate le­gal ad­vice in in­stances such as these to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate their rights. I ap­pre­ci­ate that there are many per­sons who be­come wor­ried, ap­pre­hen­sive or even fear­ful when con­front­ed by those they view as hav­ing some spe­cial pow­er.

But, every­one should on­ly fol­low di­rec­tions which are le­git­i­mate and law­ful, and be able to ap­pre­ci­ate when di­rec­tions be­ing giv­en are sim­ply an abuse of pow­er.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com