An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar yes­ter­day scored a ma­jor vic­to­ry against Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, af­ter the Court of Ap­peal ruled that she was “co­erced and forced out of of­fice” by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) and that her res­ig­na­tion was il­le­gal­ly ob­tained and should be ex­punged from the Pres­i­dent’s records.

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing, Jus­tices of Ap­peal Al­lan Men­don­ca, Nolan Bereaux and Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon de­liv­ered sep­a­rate but unan­i­mous de­ci­sions in the mat­ter.

In read­ing the court’s or­ders and sub­se­quent de­c­la­ra­tions, the three up­held the ap­peal by Ay­ers-Cae­sar that she had been pres­sured in­to re­sign­ing as a High Court Judge in 2017.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar sued the JLSC, which has the au­thor­i­ty to ap­point and dis­ci­pline ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, and is head­ed by CJ Archie.

Among the de­c­la­ra­tions an­nounced yes­ter­day was that the de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion on April 27, 2017, that Ay­ers-Cae­sar be giv­en the op­tion of with­draw­ing from the High Court bench and re­turn­ing to the mag­is­tra­cy to dis­charge her pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties—and in the event she re­fused to with­draw, the com­mis­sion would con­sid­er in­sti­tut­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, was ul­tra vires and should be de­clared null and void.

Bereaux read, “A de­c­la­ra­tion that the de­ci­sion of 27th April, 2017, of the com­mis­sion and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of that de­ci­sion to Ay­ers-Cae­sar J amount­ed to il­le­gal con­duct by the com­mis­sion be­cause it was in­tend­ed to threat­en, co­erce and pres­sure Ay­ers-Cae­sar J in­to re­sign­ing from of­fice, con­trary to its pow­ers un­der sec­tion 137 (3) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“The re­sult of such con­duct was that Ay­ers Cae­sar J was co­erced and forced out of of­fice, a form of re­moval not per­mit­ted by the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

Rul­ing that Ay­ers-Cae­sar con­tin­ues to hold the of­fice of Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go, “be­cause her pur­port­ed let­ter of res­ig­na­tion was pro­cured by the il­le­gal con­duct of the com­mis­sion and was null void and of no ef­fect,” the judges al­so agreed that, “the let­ter of 27th April ad­dressed to His Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent by Ay­ers Cae­sar J was of no ef­fect and must be ex­punged from the records of the Pres­i­dent.”

They said the co­erc­ing and pres­sur­ing of Ay­ers-Cae­sar in­to re­sign­ing her of­fice, “amount­ed to re­moval from of­fice oth­er­wise than in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 137 (3) of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” which de­nied Ay­ers-Cae­sar the pro­tec­tion of the law con­trary to Sec­tion 4 (b) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The judges al­so dis­missed the JLSC’s counter no­tice of ap­peal.

Com­pen­sa­tion is to be as­sessed by a judge of the High Court for breach of Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights un­der Sec­tion 4 (b).

Ay­ers-Cae­sar, who was ap­point­ed a judge on April 12, 2017, re­signed 15 days lat­er amidst pub­lic out­rage re­gard­ing the num­ber of un­fin­ished cas­es she left be­hind in the Mag­is­trates’ Court, which was ini­tial­ly said to be 28 but was lat­er changed to 53.

Bereaux’s rul­ing read, “The tri­al judge erred. The de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion to con­vey to Ay­ers-Cae­sar J that if she failed to re­sign as a High Court judge, the com­mis­sion would con­sid­er dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, was con­trary to sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion and un­law­ful. This il­le­gal threat had the ef­fect of putting un­law­ful pres­sure on Ay­ers-Cae­sar J and forced her to re­sign her of­fice.”

Ay­ers-Cae­sar had ac­cused the JLSC of act­ing un­law­ful­ly in seek­ing her res­ig­na­tion as a judge; act­ing un­law­ful­ly to pro­cure her res­ig­na­tion; and act­ing un­law­ful­ly in treat­ing as ef­fec­tive, her con­se­quent pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion.

She claimed she was pres­sured by the JLSC to re­sign, in that she was told to sign an al­ready pre­pared res­ig­na­tion let­ter and re­lat­ed press re­lease, or her ap­point­ment would be re­voked by the Pres­i­dent.

In her le­gal chal­lenge, Ay­ers-Cae­sar asked that her pur­port­ed res­ig­na­tion be set aside and she be re­in­stat­ed as a judge and com­pen­sat­ed, say­ing her “res­ig­na­tion as a judge” was or­ches­trat­ed.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar re­signed on April 27, 2017, af­ter meet­ing with the CJ.

Fol­low­ing the rul­ing, Ma­haraj SC said Ay­ers-Cae­sar was con­strained in speak­ing with the me­dia, as she re­mains a High Court judge and would be un­able to com­ment.

Un­der­scor­ing that this was one of the most im­por­tant de­ci­sions to be hand­ed down by a Com­mon­wealth Court, Ma­haraj ex­plained, “It de­cid­ed that a judge of the Supreme Court is guar­an­teed in­de­pen­dence to re­sist pres­sure from any­one, in­clud­ing a Chief Jus­tice, a Prime Min­is­ter or a Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, be­cause a judge of the Supreme Court, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T, en­joys se­cu­ri­ty of tenure and in or­der to re­move a judge, the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides a spe­cial pro­ce­dure for the re­moval of the judge and the judge would then have an ap­peal di­rect­ly to the Privy Coun­cil to de­cide whether a com­mis­sion ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent for the re­moval of the judge, was right or wrong.”

Ma­haraj added, “The Ju­di­cia­ry, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T, is the guardian of the rights of the peo­ple, which meant that whether the Ex­ec­u­tive Arm of the State or the Leg­isla­tive Arm of the State, or even the Ju­di­cial Arm of the State, vi­o­lates any rights of any in­di­vid­ual in T&T, the Ju­di­cia­ry has the pow­er to de­clare those con­tra­ven­tions il­le­gal and award com­pen­sa­tion. So if it is that the ju­di­cia­ry is not in­de­pen­dent and does not have se­cu­ri­ty of tenure, their in­de­pen­dence and the in­de­pen­dence of their judge­ment could be af­fect­ed by po­lit­i­cal pres­sure or by any oth­er pres­sure.”

Ay­ers-Cae­sar was rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, and Ron­nie Bisses­sar, SC.

At­tor­neys Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, Deb­o­rah Peake SC, Ian Ben­jamin SC and Ian Roach ap­peared for the JLSC.