For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day said the ap­point­ment of Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh was done in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion, and there was no rea­son for him to re­sign.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day, Pan­day said the pro­ce­dure fol­lowed the law and the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“The ap­point­ment of the Chief Jus­tice was done prop­er­ly. It was done in ac­cor­dance with the law, and there is no need for him to re­sign as re­quest­ed by some peo­ple,” Pan­day said. “The Act­ing Pres­i­dent has act­ed in ac­cor­dance with the law.”

Chief Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh re­ceived his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment on Wednes­day, one day af­ter for­mer chief jus­tice Ivor Archie an­nounced that his res­ig­na­tion would take ef­fect on Oc­to­ber 22.

On Sat­ur­day, Pan­day cit­ed Sec­tion 70 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which pro­vides that the Pres­i­dent shall ap­point a Chief Jus­tice af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. He said that while past pres­i­dents had usu­al­ly pro­posed one name, the Act­ing Pres­i­dent in­stead pre­sent­ed a list of judges from the Court of Ap­peal to both lead­ers.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion does not pro­hib­it the Pres­i­dent from propos­ing more than one per­son,” he said. “What the Act­ing Pres­i­dent did was to iden­ti­fy all mem­bers of the Court of Ap­peal, so both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion had a greater choice. Every­one knows who the mem­bers of the Court of Ap­peal are, so there was no se­cre­cy in the process.”

Pan­day said crit­i­cism from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion that the process lacked trans­paren­cy was un­found­ed.

“The law does not re­quire con­sul­ta­tion with the pop­u­la­tion—on­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion,” he said. “The Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that she was com­fort­able with all the mem­bers of the Court of Ap­peal and that their com­pe­tence and char­ac­ter were be­yond ques­tion.”

He com­pared the time­line of Boodoos­ingh’s ap­point­ment to that of for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, not­ing that in both cas­es, ap­point­ments were made short­ly af­ter the re­tire­ment of the pre­vi­ous Chief Jus­tice.

“What some groups are do­ing is at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine the Chief Jus­tice and, by ex­ten­sion, the ju­di­cia­ry,” Pan­day said. “If this con­tin­ues, it will dam­age pub­lic trust in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions.”

Pan­day al­so ref­er­enced le­gal ad­vice ob­tained by the Act­ing Pres­i­dent, say­ing it con­firmed that his ac­tions were con­sis­tent with the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“It is time for this con­fu­sion to end. If we al­low false ar­gu­ments to con­tin­ue, we risk erod­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ju­di­cia­ry. Peo­ple must come out and ex­plain what hap­pened. If we al­low this stig­ma to re­main over the ju­di­cia­ry, it will dam­age the coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty. It must be cleared, and it must be cleared now,” he said.

Mean­while, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, al­so de­fend­ed Boodoos­ingh.

“Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh brings to the of­fice a wealth of knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence, and unim­peach­able cre­den­tials,” Ram­lo­gan said. “Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh is unique in that he has prac­tised at the Bar and served on the Bench in both the crim­i­nal and civ­il ju­ris­dic­tions of our courts. His qui­et sense of in­tegri­ty, dig­ni­ty, and pur­pose will un­doubt­ed­ly in­spire re­newed pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.”

Ram­lo­gan com­mend­ed Act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark for the time­ly ap­point­ment.

“At a time when the of­fice of Chief Jus­tice stood va­cant fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, any pro­longed act­ing ap­point­ment would have risked un­der­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the sta­bil­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the Ju­di­cia­ry,” he said.

He added that there was prece­dent for ab­bre­vi­at­ed con­sul­ta­tion process­es where ur­gency dic­tat­ed prompt ac­tion.

“For in­stance, when Jwala Ram­baran was dis­missed as Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, Act­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo im­me­di­ate­ly ap­point­ed Alvin Hi­laire as his suc­ces­sor. In this case, Chief Jus­tice Archie had pub­licly an­nounced his in­ten­tion to re­tire more than a month ago, and those con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for iden­ti­fy­ing a suc­ces­sor there­fore had am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er po­ten­tial can­di­dates. Against this back­drop, the re­cent com­plaint about in­suf­fi­cient con­sul­ta­tion rings hol­low.”