Antonio Webster v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago)

Under the Constitution of 1976, constitutional redress where a parallel common-law remedy exists is exceptional. A claimant should ordinarily pursue the common-law action. Separate constitutional declarations are redundant where the alleged breach can be established in that action and may inform exemplary damages. Exceptionally grave and undisputed state misconduct may justify a standalone constitutional claim. Procedural failure to use Form 2 is ordinarily curable, but it does not preserve unnecessary declarations. A claimant cannot recover both exemplary damages and an award for breach of constitutional rights.

Mr Webster alleged that police officers unlawfully arrested, detained and assaulted him. He claimed damages for false imprisonment and assault and battery, together with declarations that his constitutional rights had been infringed. The High Court struck out two of the declarations and apparently intended to strike out the third. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal and also struck out the third declaration. The Privy Council considered the proper procedural form, whether constitutional declarations could be joined to the tort claim, and whether exceptional circumstances justified constitutional relief.

Appeal dismissed. Lord Wilson delivered the judgment of the Board.

1. The declarations sought constitutional redress under section 14 of the Constitution and constituted applications for administrative orders under Rules 56.1 and 56.7 of the Civil Proceedings Rules 1998. They should have been commenced by a fixed-date claim in Form 2. The use of Form 1 was an error, but Rule 26.8(3) could have cured it if the declarations had otherwise been appropriate.
2. The principal guidance remained that an application for constitutional redress under section 14(1), where a parallel common-law remedy exists, should be made only in exceptional circumstances. Jaroo v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago [2002] UKPC 5 was applied. Once the defence made the common-law issues clear, the appellant should have amended his pleading to pursue the tort remedies rather than continue with the declarations.
3. The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago v Ramanoop [2005] UKPC 15 did not depart from that guidance. It concerned egregious and undisputed police violence amounting to a shameful misuse of coercive state powers. Those exceptional features were absent from the present procedural situation, where the material facts remained disputed and the tort action remained to be tried.
4. The appellant could obtain findings that his constitutional rights had been infringed within the tort action. Such findings could be relevant to exemplary damages, including the category identified in Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129. A separate declaration was therefore redundant. It was also inappropriate to award both exemplary damages and damages for breach of constitutional rights, as explained in Takitota v The Attorney General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas [2009] UKPC 11.

The appellant was ordered to pay the Attorney General’s costs of and incidental to the appeal, subject to any contrary representations within 14 days.

• Privy Council — Appeal dismissed: [2011] UKPC 22.
• Court of Appeal of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago — Appeal dismissed on 1 February 2010; paragraph 3 of the prayer was also struck out.
• High Court — Pemberton J struck out paragraphs 2 and 4 of the prayer on 12 May 2009.