High Court judge Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day threw his sup­port be­hind col­league judge Car­ol Gob­in, as he too ex­pressed con­cern about the Ju­di­cia­ry’s COVID-19 pro­to­cols and the im­pact up­on the de­liv­ery of jus­tice.

In a re­sponse to Jus­tice Gob­in’s let­ter to the Chief Jus­tice (which was al­so made pub­lic), Jus­tice Seep­er­sad called for a meet­ing to “out­line our con­cerns, ad­vance sug­ges­tions and proac­tive­ly ad­dress the is­sues which con­front us.”

Judge Seep­er­sad not­ed that while he has been con­duct­ing nu­mer­ous in-per­son tri­als, the in­abil­i­ty to deal with cer­tain pre­tri­al and case man­age­ment is­sues, in-per­son, has been chal­leng­ing.

He said, “The in­con­sis­ten­cy as it re­lates to ‘COVID out­break’ re­spons­es was re­cent­ly ev­i­dent when there was an out­break at the Clerk to the Judges of­fice.

“All mem­bers of Gob­in J’s team who at­tend­ed that of­fice were called and is­sued quar­an­tine in­struc­tions.

“My team was al­so in Port-of-Spain dur­ing the ma­te­r­i­al time but on­ly two mem­bers were called and their in­struc­tions were dif­fer­ent from those giv­en to Jus­tice Gob­in’s team.

“My As­sis­tant JSO, who al­so at­tend­ed the Clerk to the Judges of­fice was nev­er called and he con­tin­ued to at­tend court with me.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad added the in­con­sis­ten­cy in ap­proach was and is un­ten­able. He said while the Civ­il courts have done well through­out the pan­dem­ic, as an in­sti­tu­tion, he said they should be very con­cerned about the “cri­sis in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ques­tioned, “How can we jus­ti­fy the fail­ure to re­sume full ju­ry tri­als at all Supreme Court lo­ca­tions?”

He not­ed that di­rec­tive af­ter di­rec­tive is is­sued and ac­cord­ing to the judge, it ap­pears that there is a con­scious de­ci­sion to rel­e­gate the of­fice of Judge to that of a pub­lic ser­vant and to dic­tate the man­ner in which they serve the pub­lic.

“It is all dis­turbing­ly dis­tress­ing.”

He al­so called for dif­fer­ences to be set aside and for a meet­ing to fos­ter di­a­logue and so­lu­tions to the mat­ter.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad added, “We must ho­n­our our oath of of­fice and en­sure that we de­fend the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry, com­mit to the de­liv­ery of time­ly judge­ments and pri­ori­tise the peo­ple’s right to ac­cess ef­fi­cient and trans­par­ent jus­tice. Let this be our gift to the na­tion as we cel­e­brate our 60th In­de­pen­dence.”