State v Controller of Road Transport, Ex parte Nausori Taxis and Bus Services Ltd [2004] FJHC 57; HBJ0015R.2000S (23 January 2004)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF FIJI
At Suva
Civil Jurisdiction

JUDICIAL REVIEW NO. 0015 OF 2000

THE STATE

V.

THE CONTROLLER OF ROAD TRANSPORT

EX-PARTE: NAUSORI TAXIS & BUS SERVICES LIMITED

Mr. E. Veretawatini for the Applicant
Ms. M. Rakuita for the Respondent

RULING

This is a contested application for leave to issue judicial review proceedings against two (2) decisions taken by the Controller of Road Transport in 1998 and 1999. The first concerns the refusal to entertain the application by the applicant for two (2) additional taxi/hire car permits for its existing operations out of Nausori Airport; and the second series of decision(s) taken in November 1999 concerns the grant of taxi/hire care permits to five (5) indigenous Fijian individuals to operate a service out of Nausori Airport.

The application for leave was filed in April 2000 i.e. 18 months and 5 months after the challenged decisions. The primary grounds(s) on which the decisions are challenged includes breach of natural justice; an assertion that the decision(s) was arbitrary and unreasonable; and procedural unfairness. The application is supported by an affidavit deposed by a Director of the applicant company.

In brief, the applicants primary complaint is that it’s application for an additional two (2) taxi/hire care permits was ostensibly refused because there was a ‘freeze’ on the issue of taxi permits at the time, yet within months of the refusal the respondent issued no less than five (5) taxi/hire car permits to five named individual operators. Subsequently, on learning that the ‘freeze’ was confined to Indian operators only, the applicant complains that the policy was ‘biased, discriminatory, null, void, unfair and illegal and in contravention of the Act and the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji’.

In opposing the grant of leave counsel for the respondents submits:

(1) that there has been undue delay in bringing the application;

(2) that interested parties namely, the five (5) taxi/hire or permit holders who stand to lose their permits if the applicant’s substantive application succeeds, were not served with the proceedings as they should have been and accordingly the action is not properly constituted;

(3) that the applicant lacks the necessary standing to bring these proceedings to challenge the issue of the taxi/hire car permits to the five individuals since it never had any right or entitlement to the particular permits issued either as a competitor or claimant;

(4) that there was nothing unfair or unreasonable about the 2nd respondent’s decision to grant the five (5) taxi/hire car permits which was entirely consistent with a pre-existing unchallenged ministerial directive; and

(5) that with the revocation of the objectionable ministerial directive in August 2001, the present application no longer serves any useful purpose as the applicant is no longer pre-emptively denied access to a taxi/hire care permit.

Having carefully considered both counsel’s comprehensive submissions I am more than satisfied that each and every one of the matters raised by counsel for the respondents is well-taken and are, cumulatively, a complete answer to the present application for leave to issue judicial review proceedings.

The application is accordingly refused.

(D.V. Fatiaki)
Chief Justice

At Suva,
23rd January, 2004.