A judge found that the Public Service Vehicles Licensing Board illegally deferred a decision to reissue a taxi driver’s licence over a criminal court case.

The Supreme Court heard that Eldon Robinson sought to renew his taxi licence in August 2019; however, the decision was repeatedly put off.

While no official reason for the deferral was given, Mr Robinson said he was told unofficially that the board was waiting for the result of a criminal court case in which Mr Robinson was a defendant.

The charges against Mr Robinson were thrown out in July 2020, but he received word that his licence had been granted the following month only after he spoke to The Royal Gazette about the matter.

He later called for a judicial review, arguing that the repeated deferrals left him unable to work and cost him more than $110,000 in damages.

In a decision handed down this month, Chief Justice Larry Mussenden found in favour of Mr Robinson and said that the board was wrong to repeatedly defer the decision without stated reason.

He wrote: “Deferring the determination of the application, while a driver remains suspended from operating a taxi until after the case concluded 13 months later, defeats the intention of Parliament.

“In my view, the board failed to take these matters into account when continuing to defer the application as it did beyond a reasonable date.”

Mr Robinson was arrested in a police sting in January 2019 after driving two men into Hamilton.

His passengers, Tiberiu Gavrila and Radu Asavei, from Romania, claimed to be tourists but were in fact on the island to steal cash from the HSBC Bank using fake credit cards.

Gavrila and Asavei were jailed for one year after pleading guilty to conspiracy to remove stolen money from the island.

Mr Robinson was arrested on suspicion of being part of the fraud plot and initially charged together with Gavrila and Asavei, but the case against him was thrown out because of a lack of evidence.

In August 2019, while the legal case against Mr Robinson was still proceeding, he applied to the PSVLB to have his taxi licence renewed.

The PSVLB deferred a decision on the matter on August 20 and informed him that he would not be able to drive a public service vehicle as his licence had expired.

He told the court that he received “oral unofficial” reasons for the decision, citing the criminal case against him.

Mr Robinson sought to have the decision overturned, but the PSVLB only approved his application on August 13, 2020 — the day after the Gazette published a story about his plight.

He subsequently launched a civil case against the board and argued that by leaving his application in limbo, the board had denied him the right to an assumption of innocence.

Counsel for the PSVLB, however, argued that the board was right to delay a decision until the conclusion of the trial as it had a duty to assess his character before issuing a licence.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Mussenden said there was no evidence to suggest that Mr Robinson had been denied a right to an assumption of innocence as there was nothing to suggest the board treated him as if he was guilty.

However, he found that the PSVLB’s decision to repeatedly defer the decision was unfair.

“If the board had proceeded on the basis of fairness, then it would have taken into account the reality that by deferring the application it was denying Mr Robinson a decision on the application and consequently his right to earn a living and his right to remit the grievance to a summary court,” the Chief Justice wrote.

“To my mind, the board could have waited a reasonable time for the determination of the criminal proceedings, but once it was known that the criminal proceedings were not going to be resolved in a timely manner, for example, after the first criminal court date of August 27, 2019, then it was open to the board to make a decision on the application.

“The legislative framework provided a mechanism for the board to cancel a licence.

“Thus, if the board desired to await the outcome of the criminal matter in order to make an evaluative assessment, then it would have been entirely proper to grant the application and then if Mr Robinson was convicted then the board could have invoked the process to cancel the licence.”

Mr Justice Mussenden granted a declaration that the board has acted “ultra vires”, or beyond its powers, to repeatedly defer the decision.

He also declared that there was a failure to provide reasons for the deferral or to provide reasons for the board’s failure to remit the dispute to a summary court.

Mr Justice Mussenden added that he would hear both parties on the subject of damages related to the case.

The Gazette tried to contact Mr Robinson for comment but was unable to reach him by the time of publication.

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