For the sec­ond time in his role as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, John Je­re­mie, SC, has over­seen the ap­point­ment of a Chief Jus­tice, this time fol­low­ing the sud­den res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie af­ter 17 years in of­fice.

While Archie had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed he would step down on a date yet to be de­cid­ed, his swift de­par­ture came as a sur­prise, es­pe­cial­ly since he had state-ap­proved trav­el as Chief Jus­tice set for No­vem­ber. It re­mains un­clear how many cas­es may have been left un­re­solved in his ab­sence.

Archie was first ap­point­ed CJ un­der the Patrick Man­ning PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion when John Je­re­mie served as his At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Je­re­mie, no­tably, is the AG un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion at the time of Archie’s ex­it.

Archie and Je­re­mie share a pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ry.

In 2009, Archie and for­mer jus­tice min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney clashed af­ter Vol­ney crit­i­cised the CJ in Par­lia­ment. Vol­ney, on a tirade, ac­cused Archie of ben­e­fit­ing from a ‘sweet­heart’ hous­ing deal and col­lud­ing with AG Je­re­mie to un­der­mine the Ju­di­cia­ry’s in­de­pen­dence. Archie called the claims defam­a­to­ry and in­tend­ed to mis­lead the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“Mr Vol­ney al­so im­putes im­prop­er con­duct on the part of the Ho­n­ourable the Chief Jus­tice, the hold­er of the third high­est of­fice in the na­tion, when, in the same con­tri­bu­tion, he sug­gests that there was cor­rup­tion and col­lu­sion be­tween the Ho­n­ourable the Chief Jus­tice and a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al.

“Out­side of a sub­stan­tive and spe­cif­ic mo­tion be­fore the Par­lia­ment, this would be in breach of the Stand­ing Or­ders and al­so amounts to con­tempt and slan­der pun­ish­able by law.

“It is re­gret­table, there­fore, that the Ho­n­ourable Speak­er, who had a du­ty to re­strain Mr Vol­ney dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion be­fore the House, failed to do so, and the Ju­di­cia­ry now has to seek and pur­sue chan­nels via which the pub­lic record could be cor­rect­ed.” Archie re­spond­ed firm­ly in a pub­lished state­ment.

In 2020, Je­re­mie rep­re­sent­ed Archie af­ter the Law As­so­ci­a­tion asked that Archie be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and that for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley trig­ger Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion (im­peach­ment), which would form an in­ves­tiga­tive tri­bunal.

Archie, how­ev­er, sur­vived, as Row­ley de­clined to trig­ger Sec­tion 137.

In 2024, Je­re­mie was set to be ap­point­ed to the Court of Ap­peal by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC), which Archie chairs, but with­drew af­ter four se­nior ap­peal court judges threat­ened to re­sign if the ap­point­ment went through.

At the Fac­ul­ty of Law awards cer­e­mo­ny on Oc­to­ber 17, Je­re­mie, in ref­er­ence to the coun­try’s homi­cide rates, said, “Our ex­is­ten­tial chal­lenge, the bat­tle of our time, is the restora­tion of law and or­der to what has be­come a state of an­ar­chy.”

Archie de­clined to be in­ter­viewed by Guardian Me­dia.

Pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer

In 2008, Ap­peal Jus­tice Ivor Archie be­came the coun­try’s youngest-ever CJ at 47 years old, re­plac­ing Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma. His aca­d­e­m­ic and le­gal ca­reer was, to say the least, dis­tin­guished.

Called to the bar at 24 years old in 1986, he is a fel­low and board mem­ber of the Com­mon­wealth Ju­di­cial Ed­u­ca­tion In­sti­tute, as well as the Char­tered In­sti­tute of the Ar­bi­tra­tors. He is al­so an hon­orary mem­ber of the Mid­dle Tem­ple Bench–one of Lon­don’s four inns of court.

The en­gi­neer­ing and law hon­orary grad­u­ate from To­ba­go pre­vi­ous­ly prac­tised law in the Turks & Caicos and the Cay­man Is­lands, even act­ing as their So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al.

He be­came a T&T High Court Judge in 1998 be­fore be­com­ing a Court of Ap­peal Jus­tice in 2004. Five years af­ter be­com­ing Chief Jus­tice, he was recog­nised for his ser­vice to the coun­try with an Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

While he shied away from me­dia in­ter­views, Archie did not back down from mak­ing his feel­ings clear on leg­isla­tive is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the an­nu­al law term open­ings. He of­ten said it was the CJ’s du­ty to speak out on oc­ca­sion on mat­ters of na­tion­al in­ter­est.

In 2009, just one year in of­fice, he crit­i­cised the Man­ning Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed draft Con­sti­tu­tion.

“What is trou­ble­some about the cur­rent draft Con­sti­tu­tion is that, in this re­gard, it rep­re­sents a re­ver­sal of the progress we have been mak­ing over the last two decades and a de­par­ture from in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed norms,” he said.

“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. 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.”

Je­re­mie, AG at the time, re­spond­ed to the speech by say­ing it of­fered room for thought. The draft Con­sti­tu­tion, of course, nev­er be­came law.

CJ con­tro­ver­sy

In 2012, Archie and late Ap­peal Court Judge Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo faced heavy pres­sure af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed as se­nior coun­sels while in their posts.

Sev­er­al le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies, like for­mer AG Karl Hud­son-Phillips, for­mer CJ Michael de la Bastide and Mar­tin Daly, SC, crit­i­cised Archie’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept silk. Days lat­er, Archie and Kan­ga­loo re­turned the awards. He did get to keep the na­tion’s high­est award–the ORTT–in Au­gust 2013, how­ev­er, ded­i­cat­ing the award to his moth­er.

A month lat­er, Archie called for the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of small amounts of the mar­i­jua­na plant. At the time, he be­came the coun­try’s first lead­ing fig­ure to open­ly ad­vo­cate for de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion.

“This is not a moral judge­ment, al­though one might ob­serve that mar­i­jua­na con­sump­tion prob­a­bly wreaks no more hav­oc than al­co­hol ad­dic­tion, but we pro­vide sup­port for one and pun­ish­ment for the oth­er. The eco­nom­ic and so­cial con­se­quences of in­car­cer­at­ing large num­bers of our youths for pos­ses­sion and/or­con­sump­tion of small amounts of drugs are im­mense,” he said.

Archie would be in of­fice when the PNM gov­ern­ment de­crim­i­nalised cer­tain amounts of cannabis in De­cem­ber 2019.

In No­vem­ber 2016, CJ Archie in­formed the Pres­i­dent of his in­ten­tion to go on a sab­bat­i­cal to at­tend a ju­di­cial fel­low­ship in Wash­ing­ton, DC. The sab­bat­i­cal was can­celled af­ter the Gov­ern­ment ruled that he was not en­ti­tled to sab­bat­i­cal leave as CJ.The year 2017 would be Archie’s most scan­dalous year in of­fice.

In April 2017, the CJ ap­point­ed the first woman to serve as the chief mag­is­trate, Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, as a High Court Judge. But days af­ter she was sworn in, a mul­ti­tude of is­sues emerged be­fore the mag­is­trate’s court, with around 50 cas­es left in­com­plete and com­pro­mised by her pro­mo­tion. The JLSC called an emer­gency meet­ing. Ay­ers-Cae­sar re­signed as a High Court Judge af­ter just 15 days in of­fice. Archie came un­der heavy crit­i­cism for his role in the de­ba­cle. Ay­ers-Cae­sar claimed that she was forced to re­sign by the JLSC and Archie.

Last March, af­ter a sev­en-year le­gal bat­tle, the Privy Coun­cil ruled that Ay­ers-Cae­sar was forced to re­sign, in­struct­ing that she be re­in­stat­ed as a High Court judge.

Sur­viv­ing Sec­tion 137

Lat­er in the year, Archie’s re­la­tion­ship with a 36-year-old man called Dil­lian John­son came un­der scruti­ny. In a sto­ry that made the British pa­pers, the man sought asy­lum in Eng­land, claim­ing his life was at risk af­ter be­ing shot at. He ac­cused the CJ of at­tempt­ing to con­vince judges to give up state-pro­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty for se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices of­fered by a com­pa­ny John­son worked for.

Sev­er­al judges, in­clud­ing Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in and the man who would even­tu­al­ly re­place him as CJ, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, called on Archie to re­sign.

Af­ter a year of le­gal back and forths that went to the Privy Coun­cil, in De­cem­ber 2018, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (LATT) mem­bers vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to send an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port about Archie’s al­leged mis­con­duct to then Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The as­so­ci­a­tion asked Row­ley to use the find­ings to con­sid­er trig­ger­ing Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion (im­peach­ment), which would form an in­ves­tiga­tive tri­bunal.

Archie, how­ev­er, sur­vived, as Row­ley de­clined to trig­ger Sec­tion 137.

In 2019, Archie fired back at the Law As­so­ci­a­tion dur­ing his an­nu­al law open­ing speech. He ac­cused the as­so­ci­a­tion of hav­ing po­lit­i­cal mo­tives in seek­ing to re­move him and crit­i­cised the me­dia.

“This is aid­ed by the aban­don­ment of the fourth es­tate of its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ed­u­cate and in­form or even be re­spon­si­ble at times ... Re­liance on un­in­formed but so-called re­li­able but anony­mous” sources is hard­ly enough.

“At the risk of crit­i­cism, I am be­ing ac­cused of ar­ro­gance. I have to say that I am too busy do­ing the peo­ple’s work to keep re­ply­ing to di­rect in­quiries when they are based on false premis­es and are of­ten im­per­ti­nent. Please don’t waste any of our time,” Archie said.

Mean­while, one of the judges who pub­licly crit­i­cised him, Jus­tice Gob­in, was left less than pleased by her sub­se­quent trans­fer to To­ba­go to lead the Fam­i­ly Court.

Court back­log

Dur­ing his CJ stint, the Ju­di­cia­ry has faced heavy crit­i­cism for the slow pace of jus­tice, with the ju­di­cial sys­tem ‘backed up’.

In his 2020 law open­ing speech, Archie called for more ju­di­cial au­ton­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly more pow­er to hire staff.

“How else are we to ad­dress re­cruit­ment, re­ten­tion, and em­ploy­ee mo­ti­va­tion? What can we do with de­lay, out­dat­ed and in­ad­e­quate phys­i­cal plant, an in­ad­e­quate work­force, and de­lays in de­ci­sion-mak­ing from an over-cen­tralised ex­ec­u­tive that is of­ten not cog­nisant or ful­ly ap­pre­cia­tive of our par­tic­u­lar needs as a sep­a­rate and in­de­pen­dent arm of the state?

“None of this is rock­et sci­ence or con­cep­tu­al­ly chal­leng­ing,” he said, adding that the ju­di­cia­ry has been do­ing a lot with lit­tle.

That year, Archie and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard had the first of a few tense ex­changes in the pub­lic eye. CJ Archie sin­gled out the DPP’s of­fice for blame as ques­tions about the back­log of crim­i­nal cas­es con­tin­ued.

In re­sponse, Gas­pard said there were four main rea­sons for the low num­ber of in­dict­ments filed: a short­age of le­gal and sup­port staff, COVID-19, a lack of of­fice space, and the ju­di­cia­ry’s re­fusal to ac­cept 450 non-elec­tron­ic com­mit­tals and in­dict­ment tran­scripts from his of­fice.

In 2023, Archie urged the State to over­haul the pub­lic sec­tor sys­tem, sug­gest­ing the present sys­tem was hold­ing back the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, lit­tle has changed (since 2019) in that re­gard. As I dis­cuss our chal­lenges, how­ev­er, one should note that many of the frus­tra­tions that we ex­pe­ri­ence are com­mon to min­istries and de­part­ments of the Ex­ec­u­tive, and I know that some se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials are qui­et­ly chaf­ing. The on­ly dif­fer­ence is that they are not able to speak as freely as I can. The struc­tur­al sys­temic de­fi­cien­cies are crush­ing us all! The time has come for ma­jor pub­lic sec­tor re­form,” said Archie.

That year, there was an­oth­er ex­change be­tween Archie and Gas­pard.

Gas­pard com­plained about in­ad­e­quate staff and oth­er in­con­ve­niences at his of­fice that could lead to the col­lapse of the ju­di­cial sys­tem.

How­ev­er, PM Row­ley, the CJ, and the AG all took is­sue with Gas­pard’s com­ments.

In re­sponse, Archie ac­cused the DPP of per­form­ing poor­ly in fill­ing va­can­cies in his de­part­ment and putting for­ward names and req­ui­site ap­praisals to pro­mote in­di­vid­u­als.

Ear­li­er this year, dur­ing his fi­nal ad­dress at a law term open­ing, Archie shock­ing­ly re­vealed that his de­par­ture from the Ju­di­cia­ry was near.

“I hope that I have been equal­ly good to my coun­try. It has been an ho­n­our to serve. I wish my suc­ces­sor every suc­cess in the pe­ri­od ahead. May God guide his or her path as this new en­deav­our is com­menced,” he said in his farewell mes­sage.

Archie turned 65 on Au­gust 18, re­tir­ing on Oc­to­ber 22, five years be­fore the manda­to­ry re­quire­ment date.

The Ju­di­cia­ry has not is­sued an an­nu­al re­port since 2020/2021. Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, as of Ju­ly 2021, a to­tal of 1,278 mat­ters re­main pend­ing at the Crim­i­nal High Court, with most of the mat­ters over five years old.