Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The own­er of one of sev­er­al adult toy busi­ness­es, which have re­cent­ly sued the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion over the pe­ri­od­ic seizure of their im­ports, in­tends to pur­sue her case de­spite the items be­ing re­leased to her. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Ron­na Zamo­ra Ro­driguez, own­er of In­ti­mate Af­fairs, gave the in­di­ca­tion on Wednes­day as her case came up for vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice West­min James. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Ro­driguez’s lawyer Kiel Tak­lals­ingh stat­ed that af­ter his client filed the case in Au­gust, the di­vi­sion re­leased most of the items seized from four ship­ments she im­port­ed in April, May and June. 

Two of the items, which the di­vi­sion main­tained were “in­de­cent or ob­scene” be­cause they re­sem­ble fe­male gen­i­tals, were re­tained. 

Tak­lals­ingh ad­mit­ted that the di­vi­sion sub­se­quent­ly agreed to re­lease those items. 

Re­spond­ing to Jus­tice James’ in­quiry over whether the case be­came aca­d­e­m­ic based on the ac­tion tak­en by the di­vi­sion, Tak­lals­ingh ex­plained that his client still want­ed ju­di­cial de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case to pre­vent cus­toms of­fi­cials from mak­ing in­con­sis­tent de­ci­sions on such items. 

“This ought not to be hap­pen­ing. Sex toys are not ob­scene. We cer­tain­ly want to pro­ceed to have some res­o­lu­tion,” Tak­lals­ingh said, as he claimed that the di­vi­sion is­su­ing an of­fi­cial pol­i­cy in re­la­tion to the im­por­ta­tion of adult toys would not suf­fice in pre­vent­ing the pur­port­ed sub­jec­tive de­ci­sion mak­ing by cus­toms of­fi­cers. 

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, State at­tor­ney Ste­fan Jaikaran point­ed out that a sim­i­lar but sep­a­rate case from Shenice Kat­tek, the own­er of Rogue Adult Toys and Lin­gerie, is cur­rent­ly be­fore High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams. 

He stat­ed said the State had re­tained Se­nior Coun­sel in that case, who is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide ad­vice to the di­vi­sion. 

He sug­gest­ed that the cas­es should be joined to save ju­di­cial times and re­sources. 

While Tak­lals­ingh ac­cept­ed the sug­ges­tion and agreed to con­sid­er the op­tion, he point­ed out that the oth­er case should be joined to his client’s as she (Ro­driguez) filed hers first. 

Jus­tice James said he was will­ing to pre­side over both cas­es if they are even­tu­al­ly joined as he not­ed he was fa­mil­iar with le­gal is­sues with adult toys from his role as a uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er.

“This is not unique to T&T,” he said.

He grant­ed Jaikaran an ex­ten­sion to file the State’s ev­i­dence in re­ply to the law­suit and ad­journed the case to Jan­u­ary 8. The cur­rent cas­es be­fore the court came af­ter High Court Judge Ricky Rahim de­ter­mined three cas­es over the im­por­ta­tion of adult toys be­tween 2019 and 2020. 

In Ju­ly 2019, Jus­tice Rahim ruled in favour of busi­ness­man and sex ther­a­pist Giri­raj “Dr Raj” Ram­nanan in his chal­lenge against the di­vi­sion’s fail­ure to in­sti­tute for­fei­ture pro­ceed­ings over the seizure of a ship­ment of adult sex toys he im­port­ed in 2017. 

Sev­er­al months lat­er, Jus­tice Rahim ruled in favour of an e-com­merce con­sul­tant, who sued af­ter his life-sized fe­male sex doll was seized un­der the di­vi­sion’s then pol­i­cy pro­hibit­ing the im­por­ta­tion of sex toys, which close­ly re­sem­ble male or fe­male gen­i­talia.

In that case, Rahim was asked to con­sid­er whether the blan­ket ap­pli­ca­tion of the pol­i­cy with­out a more in-depth analy­sis of the dis­put­ed prod­uct by a cus­toms of­fi­cer was trans­par­ent and law­ful. 

In 2020, Jus­tice Rahim up­held a law­suit from so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj on the pol­i­cy. 

While Ma­haraj’s case was sim­i­lar to the con­sul­tant’s, his (Ma­haraj) dealt with the over­all le­gal­i­ty and con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the pol­i­cy and not the method of clas­si­fi­ca­tion. 

In his judg­ment in Ma­haraj’s case, Jus­tice Rahim ruled that the pol­i­cy was like­ly to con­tra­vene cit­i­zens’ right to the en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty and re­spect for pri­vate and fam­i­ly life. 

“His ev­i­dence demon­strates that the ef­fect of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pol­i­cy will be to de­prive not on­ly he and his wife of the use of such items but al­so oth­ers who may use such for a va­ri­ety of law­ful rea­sons,” Jus­tice Rahim said. 

Ro­driguez was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ste­fan Ramkissoon and Naveen Maraj. Fe­l­isha Vil­laru­el ap­peared along­side Jaikaran for the State.