JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, July 25, 2025

Court: Move to implement data collection for property tax in 2017 illegal

by

1287 days ago
20220114

The Court of Ap­peal has ruled that the Gov­ern­ment’s brief move to im­ple­ment a manda­to­ry da­ta col­lec­tion ex­er­cise for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of prop­er­ty tax in 2017 was il­le­gal and breached cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

De­liv­er­ing a writ­ten judg­ment on Fri­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Char­maine Pem­ber­ton and Vasheist Kokaram re­versed the de­ci­sion of High Court Judge Jacque­line Wil­son, who dis­missed civic ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj’s law­suit on the is­sue in 2018.

Ra­jku­mar, who wrote the sub­stan­tive judg­ment, ruled that the Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions had no le­gal au­thor­i­ty un­der Sec­tion 6 of the Val­u­a­tion of Land Act to re­quire Ma­haraj and oth­er prop­er­ty own­ers to sub­mit a val­u­a­tion re­turn form (VRF) on or be­fore June 10, 2017 and that prop­er­ty own­ers were un­der no cor­re­spond­ing oblig­a­tion to do so.

Ra­jku­mar and his col­leagues stat­ed that Ma­haraj was on­ly en­ti­tled to de­c­la­ra­tions over the pol­i­cy, which was clar­i­fied by the Gov­ern­ment af­ter Ma­haraj brought his law­suit.

“Be­cause the com­mis­sion­er re­versed course at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty, and the ev­i­dence sug­gests in­ad­ver­tence rather than high-hand­ed con­duct or in­tent to breach statute or the Con­sti­tu­tion, de­c­la­ra­tions of breach­es will there­fore suf­fice,” Ra­jku­mar said.

He was al­so care­ful to note that the judg­ment did not ex­tend to the Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent da­ta col­lec­tion ex­er­cise which is be­ing done un­der a dif­fer­ent statu­to­ry regime. The cur­rent dead­line for sub­mis­sion un­der the new pol­i­cy, which is yet to be chal­lenged, is Jan­u­ary 31.

“Noth­ing here­in is in­tend­ed to be con­strued as af­fect­ing that ex­er­cise which is not be­fore this court on this ap­peal,” Ra­jku­mar said.

While the de­ci­sion in the case may mean that the forms that prop­er­ty own­ers, who would have sub­mit­ted them on the ba­sis of the pre­vi­ous manda­to­ry na­ture of the pol­i­cy be­fore it was re­versed, can­not now be used, the pan­el sug­gest­ed that some af­fect­ed per­sons may wish to leave their da­ta in the sys­tem for use un­der the cur­rent scheme.

“Some per­sons may be con­tent to have their in­for­ma­tion re­main with the com­mis­sion­er even though they pro­vid­ed it on the ba­sis that it was manda­to­ry that they do so rather than go through the en­tire ex­er­cise at such fu­ture time if re­quired,” Ra­jku­mar said.

The ap­peal pan­el al­so re­ject­ed claims that the law­suit was aca­d­e­m­ic be­cause the pol­i­cy was clar­i­fied months af­ter be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

“The pub­lic would be en­ti­tled to know whether in fact it was jus­ti­fied in law by statute, or even whether con­sti­tu­tion­al breach­es had been com­mit­ted,” Ra­jku­mar said.

As a sec­ondary is­sue in the case, the ap­peal pan­el ruled that pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy breached Ma­haraj’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and re­spect for his pri­vate life.

The pan­el not­ed that il­le­gal manda­to­ry pol­i­cy for the dis­clo­sure of per­son­al in­for­ma­tion such as tele­phone num­bers and email ad­dress­es caused the breach of his right to pri­vate life.

“A Gov­ern­ment de­part­ment seek­ing per­son­al in­for­ma­tion from a cit­i­zen in a man­ner which con­veys the im­pres­sion that the in­for­ma­tion is to be sup­plied on a manda­to­ry ba­sis, fail­ing which there ex­ists the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sanc­tions, crim­i­nal in na­ture, is a mat­ter that is far more se­ri­ous than a sim­ple re­quest for tele­phone num­bers and email ad­dress would at first sight sug­gest,” they said.

They al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that no breach oc­curred be­cause the in­for­ma­tion was eas­i­ly pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble.

“If it were pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble in that form then there would have been no need for that por­tion of the da­ta col­lec­tion ex­er­cise,” they said.

While Ra­jku­mar’s col­leagues agreed with his judg­ment, Kokaram sought to sep­a­rate­ly ad­dress the breach of re­spect for pri­vate life.

“The un­law­ful de­mand for this pri­vate in­for­ma­tion robs the in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the in­di­vid­ual and the State of its le­git­i­ma­cy. An il­le­git­i­mate pow­er to make the re­quest places the de­mand in the sphere of ex­clu­sion,” Kokaram said.

“In this pub­lic sit­u­a­tion, the pri­vate in­ter­est to be left alone does not give way to the gov­ern­ment in­ter­est in in­tru­sion in­to an in­di­vid­ual’s pri­va­cy as it is not a le­git­i­mate ad­vance­ment of the pub­lic in­ter­est. The in­tru­sion every so slight­ly still amounts to a con­sti­tu­tion­al breach,” he added.

In a press re­lease is­sued short­ly af­ter the judge­ment was hand­ed down, Ma­haraj said he was grate­ful for the out­come.

“I brought this case in the pub­lic in­ter­est be­cause I felt that cit­i­zens were be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly. Peo­ple were be­ing in­tim­i­dat­ed and bul­lied in­to pro­vid­ing sen­si­tive per­son­al in­for­ma­tion by the Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions with­out any re­gard to their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­va­cy,” he said.

Ma­haraj al­so ex­pressed hope that his le­gal vic­to­ry may in­spire oth­er cit­i­zens to pur­sue pub­lic in­ter­est law­suits.

“Pub­lic in­ter­est lit­i­ga­tion is not some­thing that should be dis­cour­aged be­cause it is vi­tal to democ­ra­cy and the preser­va­tion of the rule of law,” he said

Ma­haraj was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Kent Sam­lal, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Jared Ja­groo, and Vishaal Siewsaran.

Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, Ravi Heffes-Doon, and Kendra Mark-Gor­don rep­re­sent­ed the Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions, while Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Rishi Dass, and Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored