Stop trying to get past Constitution

THE EDITOR: There is no doctrine in the TT Constitution of prior delegability accompanying the Government or Cabinet. Further, burden of proof in respect of delegations (eg statutory regulations) is on the Government. Moreover, the TT Constitution does not provide a monarchal Cabinet. It means government is subject to the Constitution.

The taxation components (Inland Revenue, Excise) are set up as they are in order to secure, via necessary independence, 1. separation of powers, 2. objective taxation by legal adjudication, 3. higher causes of the Constitution, namely the inviolable rights.

This cannot be reduced to an equivalence with hospital management or a PAYE processing operation "that the Executive may give and take back and rearrange." Neither does it work by bringing non-juridical burdens upon the taxpayer; nor can it be achieved sensibly by substituting non-juridical burdens. Government cannot sustain this by substituting public servants and bodies.

But to alter the structure of this requires a super-majority. Similarly, the Government cannot pass laws during a state of emergency that survive after the emergency is lifted but are contrary to the Constitution.

Again, Government cannot pass tax collection laws under the direct control of, say, the Ministry of Public Administration as a "VAT collection equivalence that got parliamentary approval."

Improving BIR and Excise performance and accreditation would only require a regular majority that takes insight that is totally absent here.

But go back to the start. It is not for any judge to say, I will allow the Revenue Authority to proceed because I know the legislation will eventually include delegated powers, and "therefore" the burden is on those who complain about it to prove otherwise. That is not even a judicial process.

E GALY

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