The Law As­so­ci­a­tion has agreed with the pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) Michael de la Bastide that com­ments at­trib­uted to CCJ judge David Hay­ton were in­ap­pro­pri­ate and im­prop­er.

In a one-page state­ment signed by the as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent, Mar­tin Daly, SC, the as­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed, "Jus­tice Hay­ton clear­ly de­scend­ed in­to the are­na of pol­i­tics by com­ments he made re­gard­ing the in­flu­ence of the Prime Min­is­ter, pro­pos­als for the amend­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the role of par­ty po­lit­i­cal con­stituen­cies and per­sons in ac­tive pol­i­tics."

The as­so­ci­a­tion added: "Like all oth­er cit­i­zens, judges are en­ti­tled to free­dom of ex­pres­sion. How­ev­er, in ex­er­cis­ing that right, a judge must con­duct him­self in such a man­ner as to pre­serve the dig­ni­ty of his of­fice and the im­par­tial­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry." The law body felt that Hay­ton's de­scent in­to pol­i­tics was a fun­da­men­tal breach of ju­di­cial im­pro­pri­ety and re­straint.

"The prompt and un­equiv­o­cal re­sponse of the pres­i­dent of the court has mit­i­gat­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion's con­cern, but we will main­tain a watch­ful eye," it said Eng­lish-born Hay­ton made cer­tain re­marks in a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle pub­lished last week­end.