Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj says he can­not un­der­stand how Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie could con­tin­ue to sit in of­fice “as though noth­ing has hap­pened” fol­low­ing the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing in the Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar mat­ter.

At a news con­fer­ence at his law cham­bers in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj, who was part of her le­gal team, gave de­tails of the events that led to Ay­ers-Cae­sar be­ing “threat­ened and co­erced” by the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion and re­sign­ing as a judge on April 27, 2017.

Fol­low­ing the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment on March 24, there have been calls, in­clud­ing from the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers and Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan for Archie’s res­ig­na­tion.

The Coun­cil’s Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee found that Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s res­ig­na­tion from the High Court was the re­sult of co­er­cion and that the JLSC’s ac­tions vi­o­lat­ed her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Asked if he felt Archie should re­sign or Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion in­voked—which re­lates to an en­quiry and pos­si­ble re­moval of a ju­di­cial mem­ber—Ma­haraj said he did not want to make the mat­ter per­son­al and would wait “to see what hap­pens” in the com­ing days.

How­ev­er, he said, “This is not an or­di­nary case. This is not some­thing that we can sweep un­der the car­pet. This is not some­thing that we can re­main silent for a few days, and it should go away. This is a case in which peo­ple took an oath, not on­ly judges, oth­er per­sons in­volved in this de­ci­sion took an oath to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and law of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I have been in pub­lic of­fice. I took an oath to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and law, and I can­not un­der­stand for the life of me that how can some­one take an oath to up­hold the con­sti­tu­tion of the law and some­thing like this can hap­pen and they can re­main silent, or they can re­main in of­fice, or they can con­tin­ue as though noth­ing hap­pened. I can­not un­der­stand that.”

Ma­haraj al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Khan, SC, for his one-man protest in front of the Hall of Jus­tice call­ing for Archie’s res­ig­na­tion.

Asked about Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s next step, Ma­haraj said he spoke to her and he doesn’t see any rea­son “so far” that she would not con­tin­ue to be a judge.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar, who was the first woman to be made chief mag­is­trate, was sworn in as a judge on April 12, 2017. How­ev­er, on April 26, there was a fra­cas in the mag­is­trate’s court by pris­on­ers af­ter they learnt their cas­es may be ad­journed and may have to start all over be­cause of Ay­ers-Cae­sar’s el­e­va­tion to the High Court.

Dur­ing an emer­gency meet­ing of the JLSC, Ma­haraj re­called Ay­ers-Cae­sar was forced to sign a pre-pre­pared me­dia state­ment an­nounc­ing her res­ig­na­tion. He said a threat was made to have the then-pres­i­dent re­voke her ap­point­ment if she re­fused on April 27.

Ma­haraj called on those who were in pub­lic of­fice at the time “to speak out now to let the peo­ple know ex­act­ly what hap­pened.”