Derek Achong

For­mer chief mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar has claimed that Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, oth­er mem­bers of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff con­spired to­geth­er to force her out of of­fice.

Tes­ti­fy­ing in her high­ly-an­tic­i­pat­ed ju­di­cial re­view case be­fore Jus­tice David Har­ris yes­ter­day morn­ing, the for­mer ju­di­cial of­fi­cer, who holds the record as the first fe­male chief mag­is­trate and the short­est-serv­ing High Court judge, re­peat­ed­ly al­leged that she was threat­ened by Archie be­fore she grudg­ing­ly agreed to ten­der her res­ig­na­tion in April 2017.

“I did not think I had a choice. I thought what he threat­ened me with had to be done,” Ay­ers-Cae­sar said while be­ing ques­tioned by Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau.

Yes­ter­day’s vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice David Har­ris was eas­i­ly the high­est at­tend­ed since the tech­nol­o­gy was rolled out at the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, with dozens of at­tor­neys and mem­bers of the pub­lic tun­ing in as Ay­ers-Cae­sar was grilled re­mote­ly from her lawyer’s of­fice in south Trinidad.

Mar­tineau spent sev­er­al hours metic­u­lous­ly quizzing Ay­ers-Cae­sar over her ver­sion of the events which led to her res­ig­na­tion on April 27, 2017.

Asked by Mar­tineau whether she was aware that even if Archie had threat­ened her as she claimed, he could not make good on it as there is a con­sti­tu­tion­al process for im­peach­ment of judges, Ay­ers-Cae­sar claimed she was not at the time but was sub­se­quent­ly in­formed.

Mar­tineau not­ed that while Ay­ers-Cae­sar brought the ju­di­cial re­view against the JLSC, the records of its meet­ings showed that no de­ci­sion to give her an ul­ti­ma­tum was made.

Chief Justice Ivor Archie

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

He sug­gest­ed that it, in fact, de­cid­ed that Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s con­duct in leav­ing 53 cas­es un­fin­ished when tak­ing up the ju­di­cial ap­point­ment may have been suf­fi­cient to war­rant a dis­ci­pli­nary in­quiry.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar re­peat­ed­ly main­tained her po­si­tion over Archie’s al­leged rep­re­sen­ta­tions to her.

“I be­lieved him. I had no rea­son to be­lieve he was mis­rep­re­sent­ing the truth,” Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

In­ter­ro­gat­ed over how she in­tend­ed to deal with part-heard cas­es, Ay­ers-Cae­sar said she be­lieved that she, Archie and the oth­er mem­bers of the JLSC were at­tempt­ing to ar­rive at a work­able so­lu­tion and that she thought that the cas­es, which she claimed were not at an ad­vanced stage, could be restart­ed and com­plet­ed be­fore an­oth­er mag­is­trate.

Asked why she did not raise an alarm when she claimed that Archie’s then ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant was draft­ing her res­ig­na­tion let­ter to be sent to the Pres­i­dent, Ay­ers-Cae­sar said: “There was no need to ob­ject. I felt it was a done deal.”

Mar­tineau al­so cau­tioned her about her al­le­ga­tions, as he sug­gest­ed that she was al­leg­ing a ma­jor con­spir­a­cy against her­self by high of­fice­hold­ers.

“They pro­cured my res­ig­na­tion in an il­le­gal way,” Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

She al­so re­ject­ed Mar­tineau’s claims that she mis­rep­re­sent­ed the num­ber of pend­ing cas­es left by her when the pub­lic furore over the is­sue arose, short­ly af­ter he ap­point­ment.

She claimed that her for­mer staff had in­di­cat­ed that it was 28 cas­es while checks by her suc­ces­sor, Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle, re­vealed al­most twice that amount.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar de­nied any wrong­do­ing in the er­ror over the case­load mat­ter, as she claimed that she was mere­ly trans­mit­ting in­for­ma­tion re­layed to her and was al­so con­cerned when the num­ber in­creased af­ter the sub­se­quent check was made.

Russell Martineau

The tri­al is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to­mor­row when Archie is ex­pect­ed to be cross-ex­am­ined.

Un­like Ay­ers-Cae­sar, who was re­quired to tes­ti­fy from the con­fer­ence room of her lawyers’ of­fice, Archie will tes­ti­fy from his home.

At the start of the hear­ing yes­ter­day, Archie’s lawyers in­di­cat­ed that he was in­volved in an in­ci­dent on the week­end and was re­quired to quar­an­tine at home for sev­en days.

Al­though Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s lead at­tor­ney Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, warned that there may be neg­a­tive pub­lic per­cep­tion, he did not ob­ject to this, nor did at­tor­neys for the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

ABOUT THE CASE

Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar was ap­point­ed a High Court Judge in April 2017 but two weeks lat­er, af­ter pub­lic crit­i­cism over the back­log in cas­es she had left be­hind in the Mag­is­trates’ Court, she re­signed from the post.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar then filed a law­suit in which she claimed that she was pres­sured by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) in­to re­sign­ing. She al­so con­tend­ed that for­mer Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, who is al­so a for­mer High Court Judge, re­fused to in­ter­vene af­ter she in­formed him of Archie and the JLSC’s con­duct.

Archie and the JLSC have de­nied any wrong­do­ing and have claimed that Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s fail­ure to dis­close her un­fin­ished case­load was suf­fi­cient­ly se­ri­ous enough to war­rant a dis­ci­pli­nary in­quiry.

They al­so con­tend that Ay­ers-Cae­sar ac­cept­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and freely ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion with the in­ten­tion, at that time, to re­turn as a mag­is­trate to com­plete the part-heard cas­es be­fore tak­ing up her new High Court po­si­tion.

While Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s case was at a pre­lim­i­nary stage, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al filed an in­ter­pre­ta­tion law­suit to help de­ter­mine what should hap­pen to her un­fin­ished case­load.

How­ev­er, most of the cas­es were restart­ed and com­plet­ed by Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s suc­ces­sor Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle be­fore the case was de­ter­mined by High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in last year.

Gob­in even­tu­al­ly ruled that all the cas­es would have to be restart­ed, as there was no le­gal pro­vi­sion for them to be com­plet­ed be­fore a fresh mag­is­trate.

Justice David Harris

Most, if not all, of the hand­ful of cas­es that were put on hold pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case be­fore Gob­in have since been com­plet­ed.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s lawyers had ap­plied to cross-ex­am­ine Archie and three of the JLSC’s wit­ness­es - its sec­re­tary Coomarie Goolab­s­ingh and Archie’s for­mer as­so­ciates and cur­rent High Court Mas­ters Sher­lanne Pierre and Jade Ro­driguez.

How­ev­er, they were de­nied by Har­ris.

In April, last year, three of Archie’s col­leagues over­ruled Har­ris’ de­ci­sions on the cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.

The Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion was up­held by the Privy Coun­cil in a sep­a­rate ap­peal. An ap­pli­ca­tion by the AG’s Of­fice to have Car­mona re­moved from the law­suit was al­so re­sist­ed and up­held by the Privy Coun­cil.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Ron­nie Bisses­sar and Vi­jaya Ma­haraj.

Archie and the JLSC are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, Ian Ben­jamin, SC, Ian Roach and Mar­celle Fer­di­nand.

Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, Ravi Nan­ga, Ravi Heffes-Doon, Zel­i­ca Haynes-Soo Hon and Di­ane Kat­wa­roo are rep­re­sent­ing the AG’s Of­fice.