The money represents fees paid to the PTSC by the maxi operators. The law laws agreed with a lower court's decision that said the PTSC violated the constitutional rights of the appellants by imposing the $1 charge for each exit of the facility.
The judgment means the PTSC must immediately stop charging the fees in addition to repaying the monies already collected.
The law lords said the control of the City Gate facility and the imposition of the exit fee were clearly inconsistent with the promise Government had made to the maxi taxi association.
The maxi taxi operators challenged the Court of Appeal’s decision of February 23, 2009 that overturned the ruling of High Court to grant relief to the maxi operators.
Justice Mustapha Ibrahim had ruled on June 20, 2008 that imposing the fee was “unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect in that it contravenes their right and those they represent to the enjoyment of their property as guaranteed to them in section 4(a) of the Constitution.”
The matter goes back to 1995 when the Government proposed moving the taxi stand for routes two and three to City Gate in South Quay. The maxi-taxi owners and operators were supposed to have control of the facility.
However, the government handed it over to the PTSC in 1998 and began charging the exit fees in 2001.
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