GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There are calls for Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to be­gin pro­ceed­ings to for­mal­ly in­ves­ti­gate Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) for the Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar de­ba­cle.

Yes­ter­day, the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil ruled in favour of Ay­ers-Cae­sar af­ter a years-long le­gal bat­tle over her res­ig­na­tion as a High Court judge, short­ly af­ter she was el­e­vat­ed to the po­si­tion from her role as Chief Mag­is­trate. The Privy Coun­cil found that her res­ig­na­tion was not done freely and took the JLSC, led by the Chief Jus­tice, to task.

Yes­ter­da,y the State was said to be care­ful­ly re­view­ing the judg­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young didn’t re­ply to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions about Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the rul­ing and its next step.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, when con­tact­ed, said, “This mat­ter in­volves the ac­tions of two in­de­pen­dent con­sti­tu­tion­al en­ti­ties—the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

“Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cance of the judg­ment, it would be pre­ma­ture to com­ment at this time. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is care­ful­ly re­view­ing the de­ci­sion.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ex­pect­ed to speak on the is­sue at last night’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do.

Of­fi­cials in the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T said the as­so­ci­a­tion was study­ing the judg­ment, while the Ju­di­cia­ry had no com­ment when con­tact­ed.

How­ev­er, both the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion and the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers were con­cerned af­ter the rul­ing.

Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Ra­jah Khan, SC said, “It is my con­sid­ered opin­ion that Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion were reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble in threat­en­ing, co­erc­ing and pres­sur­ing Jus­tice Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar to re­sign as a High Court judge. They act­ed il­le­gal­ly in do­ing so but that sin­is­ter and wicked con­duct is in­suf­fi­cient to trig­ger a Sec­tion 137 in­ves­ti­ga­tion against CJ Ivor Archie for his re­moval as Chief Jus­tice of the coun­try.”

He added, “It is of great sig­nif­i­cance that the Privy Coun­cil agreed with our lo­cal judges of the Court of Ap­peal, name­ly (Al­lan) Men­don­ca, (Al­ice) Yorke Soo-Hon and (Nolan) Bereaux, on the fol­low­ing is­sues -

The pur­port­ed let­ter of res­ig­na­tion by Ay­ers-Cae­sar was pro­cured by the il­le­gal con­duct of Chief Jus­tice Archie and the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and was thus null, void and of no ef­fect.

“(And) That com­pen­sa­tion be as­sessed by a High Court for the breach of Caeser-Ay­ers’ rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Khan added, “The Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment re­in­forces the faith and con­fi­dence that our lo­cal judges are knowl­edge­able ju­rists, in­de­pen­dent, fair and fear­less in ren­der­ing jus­tice for all. It’s a good sign that we have com­pe­tent ju­rists to even­tu­al­ly re­place the Privy Coun­cil. Our judges are sec­ond to none in the en­tire Com­mon­wealth.”

Mean­while, As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers head Saira Lakhan said, “The Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing is a crit­i­cal and his­toric mo­ment for con­sti­tu­tion­al law and ju­di­cial in­tegri­ty. It fi­nal­ly con­firms that the JLSC— act­ing as a col­lec­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al body — ex­ceed­ed its au­thor­i­ty and act­ed in breach of sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion by pres­sur­ing a sit­ting High Court judge to re­sign un­der un­law­ful and pro­ce­du­ral­ly un­fair cir­cum­stances.”

Lakhan said the rul­ing was a vin­di­ca­tion not on­ly for Ay­ers-Cae­sar but for every cit­i­zen who ex­pects the rule of law to pre­vail.

“We’re now call­ing for the ap­pro­pri­ate con­sti­tu­tion­al re­sponse to a con­sti­tu­tion­al breach. This mo­ment is about the restora­tion of pub­lic trust in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” Lakhan said.

“It now falls to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to ex­er­cise his au­thor­i­ty un­der sec­tion 137(3) and make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Pres­i­dent that the mat­ter be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by an in­de­pen­dent tri­bunal; this is not a judg­ment of guilt, but a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly man­dat­ed mech­a­nism for in­ves­ti­gat­ing se­ri­ous breach­es by high ju­di­cial of­fice hold­ers.

“To restor­ing con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, the ASL rec­om­mends that im­me­di­ate­ly the Prime Min­is­ter should make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Pres­i­dent un­der sec­tion 137(3), re­quest­ing that the Chief Jus­tice’s role in the Ay­ers-Cae­sar mat­ter be for­mal­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

More calls for an­swers

Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader and at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har al­so called for Young to in­voke Sec­tion 137 to in­ves­ti­gate the Chief Jus­tice. Ra­mad­har al­so stressed the need for preser­va­tion of the Privy Coun­cil.

For­mer House Speak­er and at­tor­ney Nizam Mo­hammed said yes­ter­day’s de­vel­op­ment has cre­at­ed a se­ri­ous cri­sis in the ju­di­cial sys­tem.

“This Privy Coun­cil rul­ing is yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the need for gen­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion re­form in T&T. Through­out the judg­ment, it ap­pears the con­duct of the JLSC as un­der close scruti­ny with the Chief Jus­tice in his role as head of that en­ti­ty be­ing its ‘mouth­piece’.

“If any­one has ‘to go’, it should be the en­tire JLSC that was col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble for this fi­as­co,” Mo­hammed said.

Mean­while, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj SC, who ap­peared for Ay­ers-Cae­sar, is­sued a state­ment as a mem­ber of the le­gal pro­fes­sion, say­ing it was a ground­break­ing judg­ment in con­sti­tu­tion­al law.

“The Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment is not on­ly a vic­to­ry for Madam Jus­tice Ay­ers-Cae­sar but is a his­toric and sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for the re­quire­ment that the ju­di­cia­ry must be in­de­pen­dent, and judges must have se­cu­ri­ty of tenure.

“This is a land­mark de­ci­sion which would be help­ful not on­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean, but to all coun­tries of the Com­mon­wealth.”