Privy Council warns public bodies to provide info

THE failure by a public authority to respond to a pre-action protocol letter will inevitably incur substantial costs, the Privy Council has warned.

In a ruling in favour of forester Vijay Singh, who sought information from the Public Service Commission (PSC) through a Freedom of Information Act request after he was told his university degree was not recognised for promotion, the British law lords said the case might be an important one for the review of the operation of the pre-action protocol regime in TT.

The Privy Council was asked by Singh’s attorneys Anand Ramlogan, SC, Nicola Newbegin, Alana Rambarran and Alvin Pariagsingh to review a decision of the local appellate court to refuse to grant an order for legal costs.

Singh had filed a judicial review application after the PSC did not respond to him, although it eventually did and he received permission to withdraw his application.

He also asked for an order of costs, which was granted but then set aside. He also lost at the appellate court.

In their ruling, Lords Reed, Briggs and Arden admitted it was not the practice of the board to intervene in an appeal about costs, saying it was best left for the discretion of the first-instance judge, since local circumstances, including the implementation of procedural reform, would be better adjudicated on by the local courts.

In their decision, they held the local Court of Appeal erred in its approach to its evaluation of whether the PSC failed to comply with the pre-action protocol.

“The present case may be said to be an important one in which to review the operation of the pre-action protocol regime.

“This is because the FOIA is designed to give ordinary people prompt access to documents about their affairs held by public authorities, at affordable cost to themselves, in circumstances where a failure to respond even with a decision within the statutory time limit leaves the applicant only with a judicial review remedy, which will inevitably involve the incurring of substantial legal costs,” the law lords said.

They said the expense of judicial review proceedings could be avoided if the public authority complied with its obligations under the pre-action protocol.

“Furthermore the imposition of a costs sanction upon a public authority which just delays, rather than seeking an extension of time with reasons, ought to be a useful warning against unexplained official delay,” they said, noting that Singh’s case was a “a rare exceptional” one, which led to their intervention.