Derek Achong

A cus­toms of­fi­cer is seek­ing an in­junc­tion block­ing the Gov­ern­ment from seek­ing to re­place the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) and the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) with the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) by Au­gust. 

In Ju­ly, last year, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Ter­risa Dho­ray filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al va­lid­i­ty of the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act 2021, which pre­scribed the long-tout­ed shift. 

She is con­tend­ing that cer­tain seg­ments of the leg­is­la­tion are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as they seek to in­ter­fere with the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment of pub­lic ser­vants cur­rent­ly as­signed to the CED and IRD. 

In an ap­pli­ca­tion for an in­junc­tion, filed on Mon­day, Dho­ray’s lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, claimed that at the time the case was filed the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent had on­ly pro­claimed sec­tions of the leg­is­la­tion which did not deal with the em­ploy­ment sta­tus of pub­lic ser­vants.

Dho­ray’s lawyers claimed that on April 24, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is­sued a le­gal no­tice pro­claim­ing Sec­tion 18 of the leg­is­la­tion. 

The sec­tion gives pub­lic ser­vants three months to make a de­ci­sion on their fu­ture em­ploy­ment up­on the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the TTRA. 

Af­fect­ed pub­lic ser­vants have the choice to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­sign from the Pub­lic Ser­vice, ac­cept a trans­fer to the TTRA, or be trans­ferred to an­oth­er of­fice in the Pub­lic Ser­vice. 

Af­ter the procla­ma­tion, em­ploy­ees of both di­vi­sions were giv­en TTRA em­ploy­ee in­for­ma­tion pack­ages and were giv­en a time line for the TTRA’s im­ple­men­ta­tion, which was sug­gest­ed to be­gin in Au­gust. 

In the ap­pli­ca­tion, Dho­ray’s lawyers said their client and her col­leagues would suf­fer ir­repara­ble harm if an in­junc­tion is not grant­ed stop­ping the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the TTRA pend­ing the out­come of the case. 

“Pub­lic of­fi­cers would have been forced to make an im­por­tant and po­ten­tial­ly life-chang­ing de­ci­sion on the ba­sis of a law which may be sub­se­quent­ly found and de­clared to be il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” they said. 

They al­so called for the sub­stan­tive cas­es to be deemed ur­gent. 

“It is in the pub­lic in­ter­est for this claim to pro­ceed on an ex­pe­di­tious ba­sis with an or­der pro­tect­ing and pre­serv­ing the present sta­tus quo pend­ing the hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion of this claim be­cause it af­fects a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the pub­lic ser­vice which is the sin­gle largest work­force in the coun­try,” they said. 

Stat­ing that the case could not be de­scribed as friv­o­lous or vex­a­tious, Dho­ray’s lawyers point­ed out that she was pur­su­ing it with the full sup­port of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), which rep­re­sents 2,175 em­ploy­ees with­in the IRD and CED. 

At­tached to the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion was an af­fi­davit from PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste. 

Bap­tiste stat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment did not con­sult with the trade union be­fore the re­cent procla­ma­tion but host­ed a meet­ing af­ter. 

Bap­tiste claimed that while the union was ex­pect­ed to be pro­vid­ed with in­for­ma­tion on po­ten­tial is­sues which would af­fect its mem­bers, the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) mere­ly stat­ed that his de­part­ment was work­ing on vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages (VSEP) for em­ploy­ees. 

He al­so claimed that TTRA chair­man Nigel Ed­wards sought to con­sult with work­ers de­spite en­gag­ing in di­a­logue with the PSA. 

De­scrib­ing such a move as “in­sult­ing”, Bap­tiste said: “These em­ploy­ees be­came frus­trat­ed and ap­proached the PSA for in­for­ma­tion, and re­gret­tably, the union could not as­sist as it had not been privy to any in­for­ma­tion from or dis­cus­sions with the TTRA or the State re­gard­ing the sud­den procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 18 and op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the TTRA.” 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the PSA is­sued a bul­letin to its mem­bers yes­ter­day in­form­ing them of the pend­ing lit­i­ga­tion. 

Mem­bers from the IRD and CED were ad­vised to stop en­gag­ing in dis­cus­sions with Ed­wards un­til fur­ther ad­vised. 

“There­fore, mem­bers, the PSA shall, in your de­fense, con­tend with the Em­ploy­er us­ing the full gamut of the law, in our quest, for jus­tice on your be­half,” Bap­tiste said. 

The case and cor­re­spond­ing in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion have been as­signed to High Court Judge Bet­sey-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son, who is ex­pect­ed to set a date for hear­ing of the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion. 

Dho­ray is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram and Vishaal Siewsaran.