Sto­ries by Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer chief mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar will have to wait to learn the fate of her law­suit over her short-lived ju­di­cial ap­point­ment.

Five Law Lords of the Privy Coun­cil re­served their de­ci­sion in the fi­nal ap­peal of the case af­ter hear­ing lengthy sub­mis­sions at the Unit­ed King­dom Supreme Court Build­ing in Lon­don, Eng­land, be­tween Mon­day and yes­ter­day.

UK Supreme Court pres­i­dent Lord Robert Reed, who chaired the pan­el, did not set a date for the de­liv­ery of their judg­ment. 

Lord Reed said, “We will con­sid­er your sub­mis­sions and is­sue our de­ci­sion as soon as we can.”

In the ap­peal, the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie con­tend­ed that three lo­cal Court of Ap­peal judges got it wrong in Oc­to­ber last year when they over­turned the de­ci­sion of now-re­tired judge David Har­ris to dis­miss the case. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions yes­ter­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Ian Ben­jamin, who rep­re­sent­ed the JLSC and Archie, claimed that Jus­tice Har­ris prop­er­ly dis­posed of the case af­ter con­sid­er­ing ev­i­dence. 

On Mon­day, Ben­jamin main­tained that Archie’s col­leagues should not have crit­i­cised his con­duct. 

“Ir­re­spec­tive of the hats (Chief Jus­tice and chair­man of the JLSC) he was wear­ing, he act­ed re­spon­si­bly, trans­par­ent­ly, and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly com­pli­ant in his con­ver­sa­tions with her, which, he main­tained, were not de­signed to threat­en or co­erce her as the Ap­peal Court wrong­ly found,” Ben­jamin said. 

He claimed that Archie treat­ed Ay­ers-Cae­sar with fair­ness and com­pas­sion while seek­ing to find a so­lu­tion to the cas­es she left un­fin­ished when she took up the ap­point­ment that caused min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice. 

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, King’s Coun­sel Pe­ter Knox, who led Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s le­gal team along­side Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, stat­ed that the Court of Ap­peal could not be fault­ed for the “very care­ful” judg­ment is­sued by each of the three judges on the pan­el last year. 

“If there is no ma­te­r­i­al er­ror in their rea­son­ing, you should not in­ter­fere,” Knox said. 

Ay­ers-Cae­sar was ap­point­ed a high court judge in April 2017, but two weeks lat­er, she re­signed from the post amid pub­lic crit­i­cism over al­most 50 cas­es she had left un­fin­ished when she took up the pro­mo­tion. 

Ay­ers-Cae­sar then filed the law­suit in which she claimed that she was pres­sured by Archie and the JLSC in­to re­sign­ing un­der the threat that her ap­point­ment would be re­voked. 

She claimed that a press re­lease an­nounc­ing her res­ig­na­tion was pre­pared by Ju­di­cia­ry staff be­fore she met with Archie to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion and that she did not have any in­put. 

Archie and the JLSC de­nied any wrong­do­ing and claimed that Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s fail­ure to dis­close the full ex­tent of her un­fin­ished case­load was suf­fi­cient­ly se­ri­ous to war­rant a dis­ci­pli­nary in­quiry.

Archie had claimed that he had sug­gest­ed re­sign­ing and re­turn­ing as a mag­is­trate to com­plete the cas­es but main­tained that he did not pres­sure or threat­en her. He al­so claimed that nei­ther he nor the JLSC had the pow­er to take the ac­tion at­trib­uted to them by Ay­ers-Cae­sar. 

They con­tend­ed that Ay­ers-Cae­sar ac­cept­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and freely ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion with the in­ten­tion, at that time, to re­turn as a mag­is­trate to com­plete the part-heard cas­es.

While Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s case was at a pre­lim­i­nary stage, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al filed an in­ter­pre­ta­tion law­suit to help de­ter­mine what should hap­pen to her un­fin­ished case load.

How­ev­er, most of the cas­es were restart­ed and com­plet­ed by Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s suc­ces­sor, Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle, be­fore the case was de­ter­mined by High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in in 2020. Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle was sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed as a High Court Judge.

Jus­tice Gob­in even­tu­al­ly ruled that all the cas­es would have to be restart­ed, as there is no le­gal pro­vi­sion for them to be com­plet­ed be­fore a fresh mag­is­trate. 

Most, if not all, of the hand­ful of cas­es, which were put on hold pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case be­fore Gob­in, were com­plet­ed.

In their judg­ment on Oc­to­ber 12, last year, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­lan Men­don­ca, Nolan Bereaux, and Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon ruled that the is­sue of her case man­age­ment as a mag­is­trate was in­suf­fi­cient for her to be re­moved un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. 

Un­der the seg­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion, judges can on­ly be re­moved for mis­be­hav­iour or their in­abil­i­ty to per­form the func­tions of the of­fice due to in­fir­mi­ty of the mind or body. 

The judges all wrote sep­a­rate but con­sis­tent judg­ments in which they crit­i­cised the JLSC and Archie for im­prop­er­ly and il­le­gal­ly pres­sur­ing Ay­ers-Cae­sar to re­sign. 

In the event that Ay­ers-Cae­sar suc­cess­ful­ly de­fends the ap­peal, she will be able to fi­nal­ly re­turn to the po­si­tion, as the Ap­peal Court’s de­ci­sion was stayed pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion by the Privy Coun­cil. 

Ay­ers-Cae­sar was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ron­nie Bisses­sar, SC, Vi­jaya Ma­haraj, and Varin Gopaul-Go­sine.