The Ju­di­cia­ry says its staff will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate as they have been dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, in­clu­sive of vir­tu­al op­er­a­tions and ser­vice pro­vi­sion, un­til new ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments are is­sued, fol­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent an­nounce­ment of the re­turn of pub­lic ser­vants to work as nor­mal on Mon­day March 7th.

An of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by the Ju­di­cia­ry in re­sponse to news re­ports and com­men­tary in the pub­lic do­main, ac­knowl­edges that it did is­sue an in­ter­nal email to staff in­di­cat­ing the in­struc­tion to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing as per usu­al, un­til new arrange­ments have been put in place.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ju­di­cia­ry’s re­lease:

“It should be not­ed that any ad­just­ments which the Ju­di­cia­ry’s ad­min­is­tra­tion would have wished to put in place could not have been ready for March 7, 2022 and staff were sim­ply ad­vised to con­tin­ue to work as they have been do­ing and await fur­ther in­struc­tions.”

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment from the Ju­di­cia­ry…

Ju­di­cia­ry Clar­i­fies Mis­con­cep­tions Re. Ju­di­cia­ry Em­ploy­ees and March 7, 2022

The Ju­di­cia­ry wish­es to re­fer to a news re­port car­ried on TV6 on the evening of March 5, 2022 in which a mem­ber of the bench pur­port­ed­ly called in­to ques­tion what she con­sid­ered the Ju­di­cia­ry’s over­rid­ing of the di­rec­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter that all pub­lic ser­vants are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to work as nor­mal on March 7, 2022.  An in­ter­nal Ju­di­cia­ry e-mail of March 4, 2022 was al­so shown in the news re­port, in which the e-mail ad­vised staff:

“…that on Mon­day 7th March, 2022 your cur­rent work arrange­ments con­tin­ue un­til you hear from your su­per­vi­sors who will ad­vise you of changes to your work arrange­ments”.

The Ju­di­cia­ry is there­fore placed in a po­si­tion where it needs to quell pub­lic dis­qui­et which is oc­ca­sioned by an un­for­tu­nate mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of its in­struc­tion to staff. It has­tens to in­di­cate that the Ju­di­cia­ry func­tions on the ba­sis of Prac­tice Di­rec­tions and Rules of Court which are is­sued af­ter in-depth con­sid­er­a­tion.  

The Prime Min­is­ter did not is­sue a di­rec­tive to the Ju­di­cia­ry nor did the Ju­di­cia­ry at any time think that he did.

There is clear sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the Leg­is­la­ture, the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Ju­di­cia­ry which the heads of these arms of the State are aware of and ob­serve and no di­rec­tive was giv­en to the lat­ter.

In the past the Ju­di­cia­ry has al­ways tak­en the na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment in­to con­sid­er­a­tion and craft­ed its Prac­tice Di­rec­tions and Rules of Court in such a way as to take in­to ac­count what­ev­er health or oth­er mea­sures are ef­fect­ed by the Ex­ec­u­tive, while en­sur­ing that the con­sid­er­a­tions which are unique to the Ju­di­cia­ry and its op­er­a­tions are ad­dressed.

The Ju­di­cia­ry is go­ing through the same process on this oc­ca­sion.

The Prime Min­is­ter has stat­ed that the coun­try is about to tran­si­tion from strate­gies to han­dle COVID 19 as a pan­dem­ic to those re­quired to see it as en­dem­ic.

As head of the Ex­ec­u­tive the Prime Min­is­ter has in­di­cat­ed, as he is prop­er­ly re­quired to do, how the ex­ec­u­tive should func­tion, and the Ju­di­cia­ry will now de­ter­mine how it must func­tion. This will be con­veyed in the form of Rules of Court, Prac­tice Di­rec­tions or both.

It should be not­ed that any ad­just­ments which the Ju­di­cia­ry’s ad­min­is­tra­tion would have wished to put in place could not have been ready for March 7, 2022 and staff were sim­ply ad­vised to con­tin­ue to work as they have been do­ing and await fur­ther in­struc­tions. 

The req­ui­site Prac­tice Di­rec­tion would have had to be pre­pared and in-depth ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ments made.  The is­sue was not on­ly about staff go­ing to cour­t­hous­es but about the wide range of Ju­di­cia­ry stake­hold­ers who would be af­fect­ed by any de­ci­sion tak­en. The op­er­a­tions of the Ju­di­cia­ry re­quire ap­pro­pri­ate plan­ning.

The above pro­vides the facts of what has oc­curred in the Ju­di­cia­ry since March 4, 2022 and brings clo­sure to any ef­fort at mis­in­form­ing the pub­lic about its ac­tions.