Supreme Court affirms legal obligation on entities to comply with IC information requests

 

The Integrity Commission has welcomed the ruling by the Supreme Court on the duty of financial institutions to provide information to the Commission to verify statutory declarations. 

 

The ruling was originally issued on January 17, 2024, with a court indicating that detailed reasons would follow. 

 

The Integrity Commission says the reasons have come at a critical time when the issue contained in Section 7 of the IC Act is being reviewed by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament. 

 

In the written judgment released Tuesday, the Supreme Court affirmed that Section 7(2) of the Integrity Commission Act imposed a legal obligation on individuals and entities to cooperate with the Integrity Commission by complying with its information requests.

 

The Court clarified that the section of the Act is intended to enhance the IC's ability to detect and expose corruption among public officials and parliamentarians, particularly where individuals appear to control assets or financial resources disproportionate to their official earnings.

 

Justice Chester Stamp noted that the provision reinforces the Commission's mandate to promote integrity and accountability in public life.

 

The judgment also addressed Section 42(2) of the Integrity Commission Act, which authorises the Director of Information to seek additional information from declarations.

 

Justice Stamp said the natural course would be to seek verification from independent sources such as financial institutions.

 

The IC had turned to the court in November 2021, after Barita Investments refused to comply with a June 2021 request for information related to 151 public officials. 

 

Barita's legal team argued that providing the requested data could violate clients' constitutional right to privacy, citing the case Robinson, Julian versus the Attorney General of Jamaica. In that case, the Court recognised the right to privacy as encompassing personal, informational and decisional aspects.

 

But Justice Stamp distinguished the current case from Mr. Robinson's, noting that it did not involve the initial collection of personal financial data, but rather, the verification of information already disclosed by public officials.

 

He emphasized that public officers, by submitting statutory declarations, implicitly consent to the verification of their reported assets.

 

This consent, he argued, is inherent to the statutory declaration process, which prioritises transparency and accountability.

 

In Tuesday's court documents, Justice Chester Stamp acknowledged a significant delay in delivering those reasons in the matter due to what he described as an oversight on his part. He offered an apology for the inconvenience caused.