EDITORIAL

We are not ordinarily given to commenting on the quality of material published by our local competition, but when a multimillion-dollar damages claim against a financially impoverished state is announced, we consider it a matter of public interest and, concomitantly, a matter in which the public would be interested. These are not necessarily the same thing, but they both deserve the clearest exposure in an organ that claims national popularity by a wide margin.

We refer to the blaring front page headline in last Wednesday’s edition of another section of the local printed press, announcing the plan by private owners of local public service vehicles to sue the state for damages assessed by them at a reported $15 million. This sum represents the amounts paid out in fines over the last five years and compensation for the consequent wrongful imprisonment of those who had failed to pay their fines as ordered.

We are still not clear from the report as to the precise nature of this action or the basis of the claim, but it appears to stem from the recent dismissal by a Bridgetown magistrate of charges against a PSV driver who had pleaded guilty last year to not wearing the right uniform or the required badge, contrary to the statutory requirement. It appears that he had not received the badge he had paid for from the authorities because the printing machine was inoperable at the relevant time, a fact acknowledged in writing on the receipt by the cashier at the Barbados Licensing Authority.

Subsequently, represented by senior counsel who challenged the legality of the charges that were based upon a section of the Road Traffic Act, the accused was discharged after the presiding magistrate agreed that there was “a loophole” in the law.

Unfortunately, the public was not afforded a synopsis of the submission by counsel in the press report, but it would seem that the prevailing sentiment among the operators is that the favourable disposition of that case is to be used as a precedential basis for an argument that all previous convictions for similar offences were incorrect, thus the fines and sentences imposed on the accused at the times of such convictions were likewise without any legal basis, and that they are therefore entitled to compensation for these wrongful convictions and penalties.

This claim is an intriguing one for several reasons. First, it appears to treat the most recent decision of the magistrate as automatically reversing all previous decisions to the contrary. There is no such power in any magistrate’s court, however, since the decision of one magistrate is not at all binding on another under the doctrine of judicial precedent as it is commonly understood and, as far as we know, one magisterial decision cannot overrule another.

Second, the usual remedy for correcting a decision that is thought to be wrong in law is an appeal to a higher court, in this case the Court of Appeal, or a petition for judicial review, rather than a claim for damages against the state. This latter action may thus be perceived as an impermissible attempt to circumvent the established hierarchical court system and as a collateral attack on the earlier decisions.

Whatever the ultimate resolution of this matter may be, the sensational nature of the claim should not be allowed to outweigh the public right to know clearly the details of it. After all, any damages payable will have to be borne by the taxpayers.