DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan is fac­ing back­lash over his ac­tions in call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to ini­ti­ate an in­de­pen­dent probe in­to the con­duct of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie in the short-lived ju­di­cial ap­point­ment of for­mer chief mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar.

Hav­ing staged a so­lo protest call­ing for Archie to re­sign on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain af­ter Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s law­suit against Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) was re­cent­ly up­held by the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil, Khan took it a step fur­ther with an­oth­er sym­bol­ic and con­tro­ver­sial move on Thurs­day.

Armed with a wood­en ba­ton, Khan re­moved a framed por­trait of Archie, which hung on a wall in his Justi­tia Om­nibus Cham­bers next to sim­i­lar pho­tographs of his (Archie) pre­de­ces­sors, and de­stroyed it.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) said it recog­nised the right of its mem­bers and the pub­lic to lev­el crit­i­cism against mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry.

How­ev­er, it sug­gest­ed that such ex­pres­sions should be done with dig­ni­ty and re­spect.

“While we re­spect our mem­ber’s ab­solute right to call for the res­ig­na­tion of the Chief Jus­tice, we con­sid­er his par­tic­u­lar mode of ex­pres­sion of that opin­ion as un­nec­es­sar­i­ly provoca­tive and lack­ing the req­ui­site lev­el of deco­rum as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­fes­sion,” it said.

Con­tact­ed to re­spond to the as­so­ci­a­tion’s po­si­tion, Khan said he re­spect­ful­ly dis­agreed.

“I don’t see it that way. I see it as my fun­da­men­tal right of free­dom of ex­pres­sion un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

“Deco­rum is not an is­sue when the coun­try’s high­est court ruled that the Chief Jus­tice act­ed il­le­gal­ly in forc­ing a judge to re­sign,” he said.

“In an­oth­er coun­try, peo­ple would burn the na­tion­al flag or im­ages of the Prime Min­is­ter or Pres­i­dent,” he added.

Khan is­sued a press re­lease yes­ter­day seek­ing to ad­dress the crit­i­cism he is fac­ing.

He said that while he re­ceived some praise from mem­bers of the pub­lic, in­clud­ing lawyers, he was al­so ac­cused of com­mit­ting con­tempt of court by bring­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in­to dis­re­pute.

How­ev­er, he claimed that his ac­tions were per­mis­si­ble as he was seek­ing to crit­i­cise Archie for en­gag­ing in an un­law­ful act in pres­sur­ing Ay­ers-Cae­sar to re­sign. He sug­gest­ed that Archie’s con­duct con­sti­tut­ed mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) se­nior or­di­nary mem­ber John Heath, SC, ques­tioned Khan’s claim that his call for the probe un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion was on be­half of the CBA as its pres­i­dent.

Heath said he could not re­call any meet­ing in which the Crim­i­nal Bar would have agreed to make the call for the Sec­tion 137 probe or for Archie to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“I al­so can­not re­call so­lic­it­ing the views of our mem­ber­ship on ei­ther is­sue,” Health said.

Stat­ing that he was of the view that Khan was ex­press­ing his per­son­al opin­ion and not that of the CBA, Heath said, “I, of course, re­spect Se­nior Khan’s right to ex­press his view.”

Asked to re­spond to the state­ment, Khan main­tained that the call for Young to ini­ti­ate the probe was con­sid­ered by the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that he took the de­ci­sion to de­stroy the por­trait with­out in­form­ing them.

“That came spon­ta­neous­ly to me when I called the press con­fer­ence,” Khan said.