Fran­cis Joseph

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie broke with tra­di­tion yes­ter­day, and in­stead of fo­cus­ing on sta­tis­tics and prob­lems fac­ing the ju­di­cia­ry, he took a dig at the draft con­sti­tu­tion, which if im­ple­ment­ed, would strip the ju­di­cia­ry of its in­de­pen­dence.

Archie made it quite clear that his com­ments must not be con­strued as a per­son­al crit­i­cism of any­one, in­clud­ing the au­thor of the draft con­sti­tu­tion. But he was ex­treme­ly con­cerned that such a doc­u­ment, if ap­proved, could mean that the ju­di­cia­ry would not be seen as be­ing in­de­pen­dent from the ex­ec­u­tive.

He in­sist­ed to a packed Con­vo­ca­tion Hall of the Hall of Jus­tice that "pow­er, pomp, sta­tus and flash­ing lights hold no al­lure for me, and the bur­dens of of­fice are oner­ous."

When Archie com­plet­ed his 50-minute ad­dress, he got a stand­ing ova­tion from the packed hall.

Archie spoke at the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the new law term. While he was knock­ing the pro­posed draft con­sti­tu­tion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie had a con­cerned look on his face. Af­ter­wards, he told the me­dia that Archie's speech was a good one. Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, Mar­tin Daly, SC, of­fered no com­ment when ap­proached.

Archie ex­pressed con­cern when he read some of the pro­vi­sions of the draft con­sti­tu­tion.

"The mis­un­der­stand­ing lies in the as­sump­tion of a false di­choto­my be­tween the ju­di­cia­ry's ju­di­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tions and the as­sump­tion that one can be in­de­pen­dent­ly ex­er­cised with­out the oth­er," he said.

"The dan­ger lies in the po­ten­tial to grad­u­al­ly and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly strip the ju­di­cia­ry of its in­de­pen­dence, and the cit­i­zens of their pro­tec­tion through or­di­nary or sub­or­di­nate leg­is­la­tion re­quir­ing no spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty.

"How, pray tell, can a con­sti­tu­tion mean­ing­ful­ly pro­vide for the ju­di­cia­ry to be in­de­pen­dent on­ly in the ex­er­cise of its ju­di­cial func­tions?"

The Chief Jus­tice was most con­cerned that a pro­posed Min­is­ter of Jus­tice would have con­trol of ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ters re­lat­ing to the ju­di­cia­ry.

"How, where and by whom?" Archie asked.

"How is the Chief Jus­tice to be re­spon­si­ble, and there­fore ac­count­able, for that which he does not con­trol?"

Archie said it was pro­posed that the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary for the ju­di­cia­ry, who would be ap­point­ed by the ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent, would re­port to the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and not to the Chief Jus­tice.

"Out­side of the con­struc­tion of build­ings, which is the on­ly per­ti­nent ex­am­ple cit­ed thus far, it is dif­fi­cult to think of any oth­er as­pect of court ad­min­is­tra­tion that could be safe­ly de­volved from the ju­di­cia­ry with­out im­ping­ing on its in­de­pen­dence," he said.

Archie said the most wor­ri­some clause was the one which gives Par­lia­ment the pow­er to con­fer on any court, any part of the ju­ris­dic­tion and pow­ers con­ferred on the High Court by the con­sti­tu­tion, or any oth­er law.

"It re­quires no spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, nor does it re­quire that the new court or courts en­joy the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions de­signed to en­sure the in­de­pen­dence of the Supreme Court," he said.

Archie was al­so fear­ful that ju­di­cial re­view mat­ters could be wiped away if the new con­sti­tu­tion comes in­to ex­is­tence. The new con­sti­tu­tion, Archie ar­gued, would mean that the CJ would no longer be a mem­ber of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Archie said there was an un­for­tu­nate ten­den­cy to shoot the mes­sen­ger, in­stead of analysing the mes­sage.

Ad­mit­ting that he craved for a sim­ple life, Archie said he was on­ly in­ter­est­ed in mak­ing a dif­fer­ence and con­tribut­ing to the na­tion­al good. (See Pages A4, A5 and A27)