Kola v Grannum

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Judge: Stoby, C.J.,Vaughan, P.J.
• Judgment Date: 08 April 1960
• Neutral Citation: BB 1960 HC 10
• Docket Number: No. 52 of 1959
• Date: 08 April 1960
• Court: High Court (Barbados)

Supreme Court

Stoby, C.J.; Vaughan, P.J.

No. 52 of 1959

Kola

and

Grannum

Appearances:

Mr. H. A. Williams for the appellant.

Mr. J.S.B. Dear for the respondent.

Revenue law - Trade tax — Non-payment — Onus of proof — Vestries Act, 1911, s. 67(1).

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT:

1 This case raises a seemingly simple point which turns out on closer examination to be of some complexity. The appellant was charged in the magistrate's court of District A by the Collector of Rates and Parochial Treasurer of the parish of St. Michael for non-payment of the sum of $111.60, being the amount of trade tax alleged to be due and owing by him for the year 1958–59 to the parish of St. Michael contrary to s. 67(1) of the Vestries Act, 1911. He appeared in person and by counsel. There is nothing on the record to show whether he was asked to plead to the charge and if so what was his plea, but as the case proceeded to trial we assume that he pleaded not guilty. Of course, in a case of this kind a plea of not guilty would not mean that the complainant had to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. the non-payment of a trade tax is essentially a civil matter, but the legislature has given the vestries, now district councils, the summary remedy of criminal proceedings. The result is that civil matters of this nature classified as quasi-criminal can be proved by the balance of probabilities and not by proof beyond reasonable doubt.

2 The Parochial Treasurer appeared by counsel only, but his clerk was called and duly proved the laying and confirmation of the rates for 1958–59. It was also proved that the name of samad Mohammad Kola appeared in the rate book for that year, but the clerk, who did not know the defendant, was unable to say whether he was the person named there, no other witness was called for the complainant.

3 The defendant's counsel thereupon submitted that there was no case to answer, there being no proof that the defendant was duly rated, or to put it another way, that he was the person whose name appeared in the rate book. This submission was overruled, and as counsel elected to stand on it, no defence was put in. The magistrate ordered the defendant to pay the amount claimed and against that decision he appealed. His grounds of appeal are that the decision is against the weight of the evidence and that it is erroneous in point of law.

4 Counsel for the respondent does not deny that the onus is on him to prove not only that somebody was rated, but that that person is the appellant. In other words, in order to establish a prima facie case under s. 67(1) of the Vestries Act, 1911, the complainant had to prove that the defendant was the person charged with a rate or tax and that he had not paid such rate or tax. What he contends, however, is that the absence of a defence and in the peculiar circumstances of this case, the evidence of the Parochial Treasurer's clerk is, as a matter of law,...