FIVE Privy Council judges have reserved their ruling on an appeal of new traffic laws’ demerit point system.
The London-based court, Trinidad and Tobago’s final appellate court, has to determine if the local courts got it wrong in determining that the Court of Appeal, and not the High Court, was the proper forum for an appeal of a decision to disqualify a driver from holding a driving permit after racking up ten demit points.
A challenge to the appellate process of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act was mounted by Arouca driver, Zachary Da Silva who racked up ten demerit points for various traffic violations, including driving with a cell phone, breaching a traffic sign and because his passenger, on one occasion, was not wearing a seat belt.
He paid the penalties and thought as a result, he would not get demerit points. However, he was told that he had accumulated ten demerit points, and of the intention to suspend his permit, and he was invited to respond. He did so within the statutory period under the legislation.
Da Silva was then told his permit was suspended. He sought to appeal the decision to suspend his licence to the High Court.
A fixed penalty traffic ticket can be challenged in the magistrates court. However, his attorneys argued that the MVRT Act allowed for an appeal against such a decision to a “court of competent jurisdiction.”
In February 2021, Justice Frank Seepersad dismissed Da Silva’s challenge. The Court of Appeal later upheld this decision in August 2021.
Both courts held that those sections of the act on the issue of an “appeal” were poorly drafted as they did not precisely state the forum for such appeals to be made.
Seepersad had held that an appeal of a decision of the transport commissioner to suspend a driver’s licence must be done at the Appeal Court and not the High Court.
In their unanimous decision, the Court of Appeal agreed with Seepersad.
“Given the historical context, the court of competent jurisdiction for an appeal involving the imposition of a penalty can only be the Court of Appeal unless the relevant statute states it is to be some other body,” the Appeal Court’s ruling said.
In his ruling, Seepersad said the act, which referred to “a court of competent jurisdiction,” such a “court” was not adequately defined in any part of it.
He also said a pivotal purpose of the amendment was to remove many traffic matters from the magistrates court.
“Against such a backdrop, the court asked itself, ‘Why would Parliament now place an additional burden on the high court, while at the same time streamlining the procedure in order to reduce the number of traffic matters going before the summary courts?’” Seepersad had asked.
The Court of Appeal, comprising of Justices of Appeal Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Peter Rajkumar and Ronnie Boodoosingh, held that it was illogical to infer from the structure of the legislation that one rationale may have been to ease the workload of the magistrates courts by removing from them the administrative aspects consequent upon a de
