Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $300,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a pri­vate ve­hi­cle in­spec­tor from Ch­agua­nas for a de­ci­sion by a for­mer trans­port com­mis­sion­er to stop him from op­er­at­ing. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last year, High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion as he up­held a law­suit brought by James Nan­coo. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, in late 2018, Nan­coo ob­tained a ve­hi­cle ex­am­in­er’s cer­tifi­cate and his busi­ness, A2Z Au­to Re­pairs Cen­tre Ltd, was ap­proved as a ve­hi­cle test­ing sta­tion. 

On Feb­ru­ary 7, 2019, Nan­coo re­ceived an ur­gent sum­mons from for­mer trans­port com­mis­sion­er Bas­deo Go­sine and went to the Trans­port Di­vi­sion’s head­quar­ters in Ca­roni. 

Go­sine re­port­ed­ly showed him a dam­aged ve­hi­cle and asked him whether he had cer­ti­fied it as road­wor­thy.

Nan­coo con­firmed that he had ap­proved the ve­hi­cle, but claimed that it was not in the con­di­tion it was in at the time. 

He claimed that Go­sine threat­ened to re­voke his cer­tifi­cate and shut down his in­spec­tion sta­tion, and lat­er sent cor­re­spon­dence con­firm­ing such. 

Nan­coo lodged an ap­peal be­fore the Trinidad Trans­port Board, but it was re­ject­ed even though the own­er of the ve­hi­cle even­tu­al­ly with­drew his claim that Nan­coo grant­ed the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with­out per­form­ing an in­spec­tion. 

In the law­suit, Nan­coo’s lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, raised sev­er­al is­sues with the le­gal­i­ty of the ap­peal. 

They claimed that Go­sine should have re­cused him­self from the ap­peal and failed to pro­duce per­ti­nent ev­i­dence, in­clud­ing the with­draw­al of the com­plaint made by the ve­hi­cle own­er. 

They al­so claimed that Nan­coo was not al­lowed to fair­ly par­tic­i­pate in the ap­peal be­fore the board ren­dered its de­ci­sion. 

While the law­suit was pend­ing, Nan­coo’s le­gal team suc­cess­ful­ly pur­sued a sep­a­rate law­suit un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA), which proved that his com­pa­ny was not barred from op­er­at­ing as pre­vi­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed. 

In up­hold­ing the case, Jus­tice James found that Nan­coo’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law was breached in the ap­peal. 

Stat­ing that the process be­fore the board was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly de­fec­tive, Jus­tice James said: “The de­fects were not iso­lat­ed or tech­ni­cal; rather, they re­veal a pat­tern of pro­ce­dur­al un­fair­ness amount­ing to a de­nial of nat­ur­al jus­tice.” 

He found that al­though Go­sine’s fel­low board mem­bers recog­nised that he “could not sit on the ap­peal,” they still al­lowed him to ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate and pro­vide ev­i­dence and clar­i­fi­ca­tion. 

Jus­tice James al­so found that the board de­lib­er­ate­ly dis­re­gard­ed ev­i­dence favourable to Nan­coo. 

Al­though Nan­coo was seek­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion for the pe­ri­od his busi­ness was un­able to pro­vide in­spec­tion ser­vices un­til his FOIA law­suit vic­to­ry in 2022, Jus­tice James on­ly award­ed nom­i­nal dam­ages as he not­ed that Nan­coo failed to ad­duce suf­fi­cient ac­count­ing ev­i­dence to prove that as­pect of his case. 

He al­so point­ed out that Nan­coo’s com­pa­ny is a sep­a­rate le­gal en­ti­ty and was not a part of the case.  

Jus­tice James grant­ed $150,000 in dam­ages for the dis­tress and in­con­ve­nience suf­fered by Nan­coo. 

He al­so award­ed $150,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages. 

The State was or­dered to pay in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion, and Nan­coo’s le­gal costs for the law­suit. 

Nan­coo was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram and Vishaal Siewsaran. 

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Rachel Wright and Na­toya Moore-Bel­mar.