JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Seepersad: Judiciary plagued by chaos

by

News Desk
2057 days ago
20190916

One year ago, I broke with tra­di­tion and spoke di­rect­ly to the me­dia about my views in re­la­tion to the open­ing of the 2018/2019 Law term.

One year lat­er, and hav­ing been con­tact­ed to ex­press my views, con­front­ed with the cur­rent cir­cum­stances which can­not be con­doned, I feel com­pelled and con­strained to clear­ly ar­tic­u­late my con­cerns.

This in­sti­tu­tion which is en­trust­ed with the sa­cred oblig­a­tion to be the guardian of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law, con­tin­ues to be plagued and char­ac­terised by chaos and now stands dan­ger­ous­ly close to the brink of com­plete col­lapse.

Com­plaints in re­la­tion to the Ju­di­cia­ry and its ad­min­is­tra­tion have been made by var­i­ous sec­tors.

The As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers has com­plained that many south­ern courts are not func­tion­ing ad­e­quate­ly and there is no fun­tion­al re­place­ment for the old San Fer­nan­do Court which now par­tial­ly shares space with the High Court.

Cit­i­zens with mat­ters at the Princess Town Mag­is­trate’s Court have to dai­ly un­der­take the ar­du­ous jour­ney to Rio Claro .

Fam­i­ly lawyers have com­plained that south­ern Trinidad is still with­out a Fam­i­ly Court and the May­or of San Fer­nan­do has pub­licly aired con­cerns that the for­mer San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court is now a sor­did site and the struc­ture pos­es pub­lic health chal­lenges.

Al­though laud­able trans­for­ma­tion­al mea­sures have been un­der­tak­en in re­la­tion to Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Re­form, these ef­forts have not been ac­com­pa­nied by the req­ui­site re­sources, in­fra­struc­ture , stake­hold­er en­gage­ment or in­for­ma­tion.

As re­port­ed in the press many Ju­di­cia­ry em­ploy­ees cur­rent­ly op­er­ate un­der a state of un­cer­tain­ty as their job se­cu­ri­ty is un­der threat and the im­age of dis­traught val­ued Ju­di­cia­ry team mem­bers protest­ing on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice can­not go un­ac­knowl­edged.

Judges of the Court of Ap­peal have made di­rect and poignant state­ments in two mat­ters in­volv­ing, the Chief Jus­tice and yet in de­fi­ance of log­ic, con­ven­tion and pro­pri­ety, the Chief Jus­tice con­tin­ues at the helm of this im­plod­ing in­sti­tu­tion seem­ing­ly em­bold­ened and un­ac­count­able .

The lengths to which the Chief Jus­tice has gone to evade cross ex­am­i­na­tion in a mat­ter in­volv­ing a for­mer Judge demon­strates that the of­fice hold­er is of the view that the rules don’t ap­ply to him. Al­though every wit­ness is rou­tine­ly sub­ject­ed to cross ex­am­i­na­tion so as to test their cred­i­bil­i­ty, the Chief Jus­tice ob­vi­ous­ly felt that he is above due process.

The pub­lic at large ap­pears to be dis­il­lu­sioned and if one ac­cepts the re­cent Nigel Hen­ry poll , this in­sti­tu­tion is con­front­ed with an un­prece­dent­ed cri­sis as on­ly 12 per­cent of the per­sons polled in­di­cat­ed that they had con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry. This sta­tis­tic is so shock­ing­ly low, that, even if one fac­tors in mar­gins of er­ror and oth­er polling de­fi­cien­cies, the head of every sin­gle ju­di­cial of­fi­cer should be bent in shame.

Every ef­fort has to be made to rem­e­dy this en­su­ing mess. It sim­ply can­not be busi­ness as usu­al. Un­der the stew­ard­ship of this Chief Jus­tice this in­sti­tu­tion now holds the un­en­vi­able aco­lade and dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the pub­lic in­sti­tu­tion in which the pub­lic has the least con­fi­dence.

In the face of the un­ac­cept­able and un­fath­omable state of af­fairs, the on­ly vi­able re­course is to seek devine in­ter­ven­tion.

Con­se­quent­ly, un­like last year, I shall at­tend this year’s open­ing. En­gulfed by a shame, my fo­cus at Mon­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing shall be di­rect­ed up­on prayer­ful pe­ti­tions to catal­yse change.

A prayer will be raised that all of us who have tak­en an oath to serve the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go shall re­comit to the dis­charge of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in a man­ner which is de­void of bias, dis­mis­sive of in­su­lar and/or ir­rel­e­vant con­cerns and for all our de­ci­sions whether ju­di­cial or ad­min­is­tra­tive to be char­ac­terised by fair­ness, em­pa­thy, equa­nim­i­ty and eq­ui­ty .

God will be asked to re­mind every ju­di­cial of­fi­cer that we must be bold and in­de­pen­dent as in­sti­tu­tion­al loy­al­ty and the dis­charge of our con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion de­mands that we must do all with­in our re­mit to char­ter a new course.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored