Temporary customs agent licences: interim continuation allowed pending exam results, with unqualified petitioners permitted to sit the examination.

Temporary customs agents' licence holders were treated as entitled to interim protection while the regularisation process under the 2004 regulations was pending, because the scheme allowed two years to pass the prescribed written examination for conversion to regular status. The court also accepted that the petitioners who had not yet qualified should be allowed to take the examination then in progress. On that basis, the petitioners were permitted to continue as temporary licensees until publication of the next examination results, and petitioners 2 and 7 were allowed to sit the examination.

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Issues: Whether holders of temporary customs agents licences were entitled to continue as temporary licensees until the results of the next examination were published, and whether the remaining petitioners were entitled to be permitted to write the examination then being held under the 2004 regulations.

Analysis: The regulation gave temporary licensees two years to pass the prescribed written examination for regularisation. The petition was confined to the petitioners who had not yet qualified, and the Court accepted that the examination process then underway should be available to them, while interim protection was necessary until the result of the next examination became known.

Conclusion: The petitioners were directed to be permitted to continue as temporary licensees until publication of the next examination results, and petitioners 2 and 7 were to be allowed to take the examination then being held.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition was disposed of by granting interim protective directions in favour of the petitioners on their continuance and examination opportunity.

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