High Court declares real estate agent’s rights were breached by IRD, awards $76k in damages

Auckland real estate agent Richard (Ric) Parore has been awarded close to $76,000 in damages after the Inland Revenue Department was found to have breached his rights in a tax law case. Photo / Supplied / LJHooker Ponsonby

A real estate agent has been awarded $76,000 in damages after Inland Revenue was found to have breached his rights in a tax law case.

The High Court has declared that Auckland real estate agent Richard (Ric) Parore’s rights have been breached under the Bill of Rights Act, and awarded almost $71,000 in damages for legal costs and $5000 in recognition of the emotional harm caused by legal proceedings, which the court found last year shouldn’t have happened.

Parore was reluctant to comment as the matter was still within the appeal period, but his lawyer David Weaver told the Herald that the High Court’s decision provided some vindication in the argument that his rights to a fair trial had been breached.

Weaver said this was proven by way of the court’s declaration and the damages award.

Justice Cheryl Gwyn said in a judgement released this week that the Commissioner of Inland Revenue had breached Parore’s right to silence as guaranteed by a section of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

It had done this by filing charges against him after compelling him to provide information and then by “continuing that prosecution until it was stayed”.

A year ago, the department was told to stop chasing Parore for unpaid tax after it was found to have mishandled a legal case against him.

The courts put an end to criminal and civil proceedings against Parore, after they found the IRD had breached the now 79-year-old’s rights to a fair trial.

The case centred on a “dispute over $54,000 in tax that has been in train, in one court or another, since 2018″, his lawyer Weaver told the Herald at the time.

Central to the dispute was whether Parore was liable for GST during his bankruptcy.

He was discharged from five years of bankruptcy in October 2014 but remained working in real estate during that time and afterwards.

Parore was at all relevant times a self-employed real estate agent.

He was adjudicated bankrupt in April 2009 and discharged from bankruptcy in October 2014 but continued working as a real estate agent both during and after his bankruptcy.

He filed GST returns and paid GST during the first two or so years of his bankruptcy.

For the years 2012 to 2017, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue contended that Parore failed to pay GST and had not filed income tax returns.

Parore’s claim about his tax position was ultimately found to be correct which left the court to resolve the matter of his rights having been breached.

Parore’s evidence showed he thought the Commissioner’s breach of the Bill of Rights was “highly reckless”.

Justice Gwyn said in her view the Commissioner’s breach of Parore’s trial rights was “plainly not inadvertent”.

She said there was no direct evidence to show that it was intentional but a combination of factors led her to conclude the Commissioner’s decision to lay the charges when she did was “highly reckless at best”.

Justice Gwyn found the damage suffered by Parore arose from the breach of his rights and that the stay granted after two trials did not provide a sufficient remedy.

She concluded that a declaration was necessary.

“While both the District Court and the High Court have found that Mr Parore’s fair trial rights were breached, neither made a declaration under the Bill of Rights to that effect.”