A Minister Cannot Deny a By-Law and Revoke It on the Same Day

A Minister Cannot Deny a By-Law and Revoke It on the Same Day

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar September 2026

 On September 1, 2026, the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development wrote to Linden Town Clerk Lennox Gasper asserting that the Ministry had “not authorized the imposition of or collection of any toll-charges at Kara Kara Public Road or anywhere else in Linden.” More strikingly, the letter declared that “no By-law or Order was issued and published” by a Minister responsible for Local Government to authorize such collection.

Yet, on that same date, the Official Gazette carried Order No. 172 of 2026, signed by the same Minister. The Order expressly revoked the Linden Town Council (Toll) By-Laws 2016—By-Laws No. 1 of 2016—which had been published in the Official Gazette on August 20, 2016.

That contradiction demands an answer.

If no by-law existed, as the Minister’s letter represented, what precisely was she revoking? A non-existent law cannot be annulled. A Minister does not issue a formal revocation order, publish it in the Official Gazette, and invoke statutory provisions to extinguish something that never existed.

The Minister’s own Order acknowledges what her letter denied: that there was a Linden Town Council toll by-law, that it was made in 2016, and that it had been published in the Official Gazette. The 2016 instrument was not an informal arrangement or a roadside invention. It imposed tolls for road use, prescribed payment arrangements, identified the classes of vehicles liable to pay, and carried the record that it was made by the Linden Town Council and approved by the responsible Minister before gazetting.

The Schedule to those by-laws prescribed charges for 18 categories of vehicles, ranging from G$2,000 to G$7,000. This was plainly a legislative scheme—not an unauthorized collection exercise operating outside the law.

Order No. 172 invokes sections 304 and 305 of the Municipal and District Councils Act, Cap. 28:01. Those provisions are associated with the authority of councils to make by-laws and the process by which proposed by-laws are submitted for ministerial consideration and approval.

But a power to approve, amend or reject a proposed by-law is not automatically a power to later repeal or revoke a by-law after it has received approval, been gazetted and taken effect as subsidiary legislation

That distinction lies at the heart of lawful government. Public office-holders do not possess authority merely because they desire a particular result. They must identify the legal source of their power. Where Parliament has granted the Minister a power to approve a proposed by-law, it does not necessarily follow that Parliament also granted an unrestricted power to erase an existing by-law by ministerial decree.

The Minister may believe that the Linden toll was undesirable, burdensome, improperly applied, or inconsistent with national policy. Those are matters for public debate and, where necessary, lawful intervention. But disagreement with a local council’s policy is not itself a legal power of revocation.

The Act reportedly contains mechanisms through which ministerial intervention may occur where a council is in default, exceeds its authority, neglects statutory obligations or acts improperly. Such safeguards matter because they require government to act through the procedures Parliament established, rather than by simply substituting ministerial preference for the authority of elected local organs.

This is particularly serious because the Minister is an Attorney-at-Law and an officer of the court. That professional status carries an enhanced duty to precision, candour and fidelity to the law. The public is entitled to expect that a lawyer serving as a Minister will distinguish between what is politically expedient and what is legally authorised; between a by-law whose validity is disputed and one said not to exist at all; and between a statutory power expressly granted and one simply assumed.

It is not enough to say that the Government wishes the tolls to stop. Nor is it enough to cite statutory sections without demonstrating that they confer the exact power being exercised. The Minister’s letter and her Gazette Order must be read together. One says no relevant by-law or order was issued and published. The other revokes a named by-law that it admits was published in the Official Gazette in 2016.

That is not a trivial inconsistency. It goes to the credibility of the Government’s stated legal position and to the validity of the action taken against the Linden Town Council.

Local democratic organs are not departments of a Ministry to be managed at ministerial whim. They are elected statutory bodies with defined responsibilities, including responsibilities relating to municipal administration, revenue and the welfare of their communities. Their autonomy has meaning only if their lawful acts cannot be undone without clear authority, due process and respect for the limits imposed by Parliament.

The Linden toll controversy must therefore be tested not by political convenience, but by law. The Government should identify, plainly and precisely, the statutory provision that authorised the revocation of the 2016 by-laws. Until it does, Order No. 172 will remain open to the compelling question it has created for itself:

If the 2016 by-laws did not exist, why did the Minister find it necessary to revoke them?

CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE 2106 GAZETTED BY-LAWS THAT THE MINISTER SAID DIDNT EXIST BUT SHE SUBSEQUENTLY REVOKED ⇒