“Good rid­dance. Go your way.” These were the words ex­pressed by out­spo­ken Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan short­ly af­ter Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie an­nounced his de­ci­sion to re­tire at some point in the next year.

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter Archie an­nounced his re­tire­ment dur­ing his ad­dress at the open­ing of the 2025/2026 Law Term, Khan, who had re­peat­ed­ly called on Archie to re­sign over the past sev­en years, said he was pleased with the out­come.

Khan not­ed that he was crit­i­cised by con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty for his ar­dent views on Archie’s con­tin­ued tenure, es­pe­cial­ly ear­li­er this year when he sym­bol­i­cal­ly de­stroyed a por­trait of Archie that pre­vi­ous­ly adorned a wall of his of­fice along­side those of oth­er post-In­de­pen­dence chief jus­tices.

Khan said his firm stance on the is­sue was large­ly based on find­ings made by the Court of Ap­peal and the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil in a land­mark case brought by for­mer Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar.

He not­ed that both courts crit­i­cised Archie for his role in seek­ing to pro­cure Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s res­ig­na­tion as a High Court Judge amid pub­lic furore over the cas­es she left un­fin­ished when she took up the pro­mo­tion.

Khan al­so claimed that Archie had al­lowed his per­son­al life to af­fect his pro­fes­sion­al du­ties.

“He could not have stayed in of­fice. He just couldn’t. I have noth­ing per­son­al­ly against the Chief Jus­tice. He is a bril­liant ju­rist, but coun­try first,” Khan said.

Khan al­so ques­tioned whether Archie was re­tir­ing vol­un­tar­i­ly or was pres­sured in­to do­ing so.

“Is he re­tir­ing as a not-out bats­man, or is he re­tir­ing hurt? Is he leav­ing with his head held high, or bowed down in shame and dis­grace?” he said.

Khan sug­gest­ed that Archie’s lega­cy may have been taint­ed by his con­duct in Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s case.

“In any event, he will be en­ti­tled to all his fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits,” he said.

Com­ment­ing on the an­nounce­ment, Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj said he was sur­prised, de­spite ru­mours of such be­ing re­port­ed in the lead-up to Archie’s ad­dress.

“Of course, there were al­ways ru­mours, but it has tak­en all of us by sur­prise that he is ac­tu­al­ly say­ing that he is go­ing. It is time for some re­flec­tion and de­cid­ing the way for­ward,” Ma­haraj said.

Re­spond­ing to Archie’s calls for ex­ten­sive fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween his min­istry and the Ju­di­cia­ry over is­sues af­fect­ing its op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing vir­tu­al hear­ings at po­lice sta­tions, Ma­haraj not­ed that the process was al­ready un­der­way.

“We have had some con­struc­tive dis­cus­sions on the mat­ter, and it looks very good go­ing for­ward,” Ma­haraj said, as he de­clined to com­ment fur­ther un­til firm mea­sures have been de­cid­ed.

Op­po­si­tion Leader

com­mends Archie

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les com­mend­ed Archie for us­ing the fo­rum to an­nounce his per­son­al plans for the fu­ture.

“I think he did in­di­cate that it was some­thing he was con­sid­er­ing, and I think what he has done has brought some clar­i­ty to those who had con­cerns about whether he is go­ing to re­tire, as dis­tinct from re­sign­ing,” Beck­les said.

She ac­knowl­edged that sev­er­al of the im­prove­ments to the Ju­di­cia­ry laud­ed by Archie in his speech were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment un­der the tenure of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

She said that such suc­cess­es high­light­ed the im­por­tance of mean­ing­ful and re­spect­ful con­sul­ta­tion be­tween the dif­fer­ent arms of the State.

“From the da­ta pre­sent­ed, it was re­al­ly to the cred­it of those who made a num­ber of dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2015 to 2025,” Beck­les said.

Asked his thoughts on the an­nounce­ment, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­rell Al­la­har, who at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, said, “Hal­lelu­jah! I wish him well.”

In a brief in­ter­view, Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har thanked Archie for his ser­vice, as he ex­pressed op­ti­mism over the role of his yet-to-be-de­ter­mined suc­ces­sor.

“I am not here to crit­i­cise any­one but on­ly to ac­knowl­edge the work that has gone for­ward and the in­cred­i­ble work that needs yet to be done,” Ra­mad­har said.

“There will al­ways be room for im­prove­ment. I look for­ward to a new Chief Jus­tice bring­ing our Ju­di­cia­ry up to speed and bet­ter prepar­ing it for our fu­ture.” —Derek Achong