THE jailing of a Curepe man for 18 hours for a speeding ticket which he had already paid, has been described by a High Court judge as “unfathomable, unacceptable and completely avoidable.”

On Wednesday, Antonio Jack was awarded $75,000 in compensation by Justice Frank Seepersad who urged the authorities, including the Judiciary, to include in its technological suite of services, a system to automatically register payment of fines which can be retrieved by the police to avoid what happened with Jack.

“It was an easy fix.

“Digitisation cannot occur in silos and there must be interconnectivity which enables the receipt of services and the seamless access to information between the various arms and functionaries of the State. Such a system would minimise the risk of manual administrative shortcomings.

“The court has before it no evidence to suggest that such a strengthened system exists in relation to receipts generated by the Judiciary when fines are paid.”

He said the evidence in Jack’s case demonstrated that “if we continue to operate in a dimension which devoid of digitisation and fail to develop processes which enable interconnectivity of services as between the various agencies and organs of State, our democracy and dignity as a people will descend into dysfunction.”

He lauded the “significant transformative steps” for deeds, company searches, birth, death and marriage certificates, among others but said systemic, antiquated and archaic administrative shortcomings, which still existed in some departments, could not be allowed to circumvent citizens constitutional rights.

He pointed out that Jack’s case was not the first and urged that these matters be used as a catalyst to implement change.

In his lawsuit, Jack said he was at home at 1 am on February 22, 2019, when the police came to his house with a warrant to arrest him for an unpaid traffic ticket.

He told the officers he paid the $1,000 and had a receipt but was ignored. He was taken to the St Joseph and Tunapuna police stations before he was sent to the Arouca prison. In all, he was detained for some 18 hours before his sister was forced to pay the ticket fine again so he could be released.

Jack received the ticket on June 28, 2017 for exceeding the speed limit by 26 kilometres. He paid the ticket on September 14, 2017 at the Chaguanas magistrates’ court.

His attorneys even sent a pre-action protocol letter to the State but never received a response.

In his ruling, Seepersad found that Jack’s constitutional rights were infringed. The State was also ordered to pay his costs.

He was represented by attorney Tamara Gregorio.

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