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Friday, April 4, 2025

PM accuses Law Association of political bias

...will con­tin­ue to ig­nore calls for ac­tion on CJ

by

Chester Sambrano
2076 days ago
20190728
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his wife Sharon during the Prime Minister’s Emancipation Celebration at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, on Saturday.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his wife Sharon during the Prime Minister’s Emancipation Celebration at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, on Saturday.

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER

The is­sues sur­round­ing Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie con­tin­ued to be in fo­cus Sun­day, as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ques­tioned the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions and said it seemed as though the body had a prob­lem with the CJ’s lifestyle.

Speak­ing at the in­stal­la­tion of a new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive Sun­day, Row­ley said the main ba­sis for re­ject­ing the call by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion to in­voke Sec­tion 37 of the Con­sti­tu­tion to trig­ger a tri­bunal to in­ves­ti­gate the Chief Jus­tice is a lack of ev­i­dence.

“But they have a prob­lem which formed no part of the ev­i­dence put be­fore me or my ad­vis­ing lawyer, and it is this, all of them who you see car­ry­ing on with this sto­ry about the Chief Jus­tice, they have a prob­lem with the Chief Jus­tice’s lifestyle, it was nev­er record­ed and pre­sent­ed to me.

“But they want­ed to use me as Prime Min­is­ter to car­ry out their pri­vate and se­cret talks. I am not in­volved in that. Yet he who has some­thing to say come out and say it and he who has some­thing to do, come out and do it and that goes for the me­dia too.”

Last week, Dr Row­ley made pub­lic ad­vice giv­en to him by Queen’s Coun­sel Howard Stevens that in­formed his de­ci­sion not to take ac­tion against the Chief Jus­tice. Since then he has been crit­i­cised by sev­er­al peo­ple in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.

On Sun­day, Row­ley took aim at the Law As­so­ci­a­tion for its con­tin­ued per­sis­tence on this mat­ter.

“That is not the new so­ci­ety that we are try­ing to build. The new so­ci­ety that we are try­ing to build is one that would have a Law As­so­ci­a­tion that would know that it ought not to be at the be­hest, at the call, at the com­ing and go­ing of a cor­rupt po­lit­i­cal par­ty. The so­ci­ety we are try­ing to build is not one where the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty is one where a hand­ful of peo­ple with a se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal agen­da could call a meet­ing of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion.

“This one bring 20 of his par­ty mem­bers, that one bring 10 and out of 4,000 lawyers there­about, 150 vote to re­move the Chief Jus­tice.”

The Prime Min­ster said when it came to is­sues in­volv­ing pos­si­ble mis­con­duct on the part of mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress the Law As­so­ci­a­tion had noth­ing to say. He made it clear that he does not work for the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and will con­tin­ue to ig­nore them.

He said to ac­cede to its re­quest would mean en­cour­ag­ing in­dis­ci­pline in the Ju­di­cia­ry and so­ci­ety.


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