Ke­jan Haynes

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie says he’s open to the pro­pos­al by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion that it be the me­di­a­tor in the im­passe be­tween his of­fice and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Last month, out­go­ing LATT pres­i­dent Sophia Chote, SC, wrote sep­a­rate­ly to DPP Roger Gas­pard and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour seek­ing meet­ings with them in an at­tempt to re­solve the on­go­ing is­sues with­in the DPP’s Of­fice.

Gas­pard has al­ready in­di­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to be part of those talks as well.

Speak­ing to re­porters on day two of the Cari­com Re­gion­al Crime Sym­po­sium, Archie said he’s open to dis­cus­sions but made it clear he isn’t at odds with the DPP’s Of­fice.

Asked if he was dis­miss­ing any no­tion of a war be­tween his of­fice and the DPP’s of­fice, the CJ said, “I’m not at war with any­body. And I don’t think the DPP has ever said that he’s at war with me.”

He said he is open to dis­cus­sion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the DPP’s of­fice and hopes to keep dis­cus­sions and dis­agree­ments out of the pub­lic do­main.

“I think it’s un­for­tu­nate that per­cep­tions had to spill out in­to the pub­lic are­na. But I don’t pro­pose to con­duct that dis­cus­sion, or de­bate, or counter points in the pub­lic sphere, be­cause I don’t think that is con­ducive to agree­ment and co­he­sion,” Archie said.

“I look for­ward to hav­ing some frank and open dis­cus­sions with the DPP. And I’m sure we have com­mon in­ter­ests in terms of ad­vanc­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and speed­ing up our crim­i­nal jus­tice process.”

Last month, the DPP com­plained of a staff short­age to con­duct their af­fairs in the courts and the lack of an ap­pro­pri­ate build­ing to ac­com­mo­date his staff.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley added to the de­bate at a pub­lic meet­ing when he ar­gued the DPP’s of­fice had left a build­ing un­oc­cu­pied for years while the state paid rent to the tune of mil­lions a year. The AG joined the fray when he ac­cused the DPP’s Of­fice of “un­der­per­form­ing,” a claim which in­cit­ed staff with­in the DPP’s Of­fice to pen a let­ter of com­plaint to Ar­mour call­ing for an apol­o­gy.

On March 17, CJ Archie ac­cused Gas­pard of fail­ing to sug­gest names for lawyers to be pro­mot­ed to fill the va­can­cies with­in his of­fice.