By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
TEMPLE OF JUSTICE, Monrovia- The Supreme Court of Liberia has upheld and finally ended Orange long-running three days free call “wahala” with the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) in its final ruling on Thursday.
The September 3, 2020 Ruling made by the sixth Judicial Civil law court in a petition for Judicial review filed by Orange Liberia through it legal counsel Cllr. Jallah Barbu in which an appeal was announced.
In their opinion, the Supreme Court identified three issues as being dispositive of the appeal taken by Orange Liberia.
Whether a ‘surcharge is exclusively an additional tax’ such as to preclude by the Liberia Telecommunication Authority from levying the same under the authority of the telecommunication Act of 2007?Does the revenue code as Amended 2016 that repeal and amend certain provisions of the tax law extend to and affect the telecommunication Act 2007?
Whether the trial Judge erred when he ruled that the Orange Liberia petition for Judicial review failed to alleged sufficient legal grounds?
According to Supreme Court opinion, it takes cognizance of the use of the conjunction or in the definition to indicate a function of alternative; that is to say a surcharge by definition functions either as an additional tax, additional cost or an additional charge.
The independent assigned to each part of the meaning considers the context of using the word surcharge to promote legislative intent.
However, the law in Vogue in this jurisdiction states that words and phrases must be construed in their context and given their usually accepted meaning to the approved usage of the language unless the construction is inconsistent with the Legislature’s to intent or another purpose is expressly indicted.
The higher court in the land said the lower court judge did not err in decision made by ruling against Orange Liberia who filed a petition and failed to provide sufficient grounds for its Judicial review Against the LTA.
On April 5th of 2019, Orange Liberia filed a sixteen counts motion while the LTA filed a twenty- two counts resisting said motion.
Orange Liberia claimed abolishing their three days free call or unlimited calls is a core of it’s marketing strategy and if stopped, would destabilize the company and create a significant risk on its leadership of the market, operations, revenue, taxes besides affecting a vast number of its customer something that could be challenging for them to comply with a price floor.
It can be recalled that on the 25th of February 2019, the LTA caused the publication of its order captioned LTA services and regulatory fee on telecommunication goods and services. Part ii, section 2.1 of the said order, sets forth the price floor for on-net voice at US$0.0156 per minute and section 2.3 sets the floor for data services at US$0.0218 per megabyte, something that led Orange Liberia to file petition of Judicial Review against the LTA.
But LTA was acting on the 2007 Act which delegates to and empowers the LTA among other things to make regulations and rules and promulgate orders respecting any matter or thing, including orders to compel a person to comply with or implement the purposes of the telecommunication Act of 2007, a regulation, rule or license.