Derek Achong

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has been or­dered to re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion to re­ject the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s (LATT) call to im­peach Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. 

High Court Judge Vasheist Kokaram made the or­der as he par­tial­ly up­held the LATT’s le­gal chal­lenge against Row­ley’s de­ci­sion at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing.  Kokaram ruled that Row­ley made an er­ror by con­clud­ing that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against Archie was in­flu­enced by the Op­po­si­tion. 

In mak­ing the de­ci­sion, Kokaram did not on­ly con­sid­er the of­fi­cial rea­sons giv­en by Row­ley, when he an­nounced his de­ci­sion dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing in Ju­ly, last year but al­so state­ments made on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms, be­fore and af­ter the de­ci­sion, in which the prime min­is­ter ques­tioned the in­de­pen­dence of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. 

Stat­ing that Row­ley’s ac­cu­sa­tions were ir­rel­e­vant and un­jus­ti­fied, Kokaram said: “No­tably there is no ev­i­dence in this case to sug­gest any con­spir­a­cy on the part of the LATT and the Op­po­si­tion. The over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence is to the con­trary.” 

He not­ed that when Archie ini­tial­ly chal­lenged the LATT’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Court of Ap­peal and Privy Coun­cil both stat­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion act­ed in a bona fide man­ner and with­out bad faith. 

Kokaram ad­vised Row­ley to re­view his de­ci­sion with an open mind and with­out re­gard to the po­lit­i­cal bias al­le­ga­tions. He sug­gest­ed that in the event that Row­ley still de­cides to con­sid­er the po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tions, he should give the LATT an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond be­fore de­liv­er­ing his de­ci­sion. 

How­ev­er, the judge­ment does not com­pel Row­ley to make a spe­cif­ic de­ci­sion on the is­sue, which leaves it open for him to ar­rive at the same de­ci­sion he ini­tial­ly made. 

Kokaram’s rul­ing in the case was not a to­tal le­gal vic­to­ry for the LATT as it lost all of its oth­er chal­lenges of Row­ley’s over­all de­ci­sion—that the com­plaint was in­suf­fi­cient to war­rant im­peach­ment, was il­le­gal and un­rea­son­able. 

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the de­ci­sion is not one that fails to add up or is lack­ing in rea­son or log­ic. It is nei­ther per­verse nor out­ra­geous. It is bal­anced and san­guine in its ap­proach to the is­sues,” Kokaram said. 

“The fact that the LATT dis­agrees with the de­ci­sion is un­der­stand­able but it does not rob the de­ci­sion of its gen­uine con­sid­er­a­tions of the com­plaint,” he added, as he com­mend­ed Row­ley’s ac­tions in seek­ing in­de­pen­dent le­gal ad­vice and pro­vid­ing writ­ten rea­sons. 

Kokaram’s de­ci­sion to dis­miss the LATT’s oth­er crit­i­cisms of Row­ley did not large­ly af­fect the over­all out­come, as even if the as­so­ci­a­tion had been suc­cess­ful in those as­pects of the case, the max­i­mum re­lief that could be grant­ed would have been es­sen­tial­ly the same or­der it ac­tu­al­ly re­ceived.  

As part of his judge­ment, Kokaram un­der­took a de­tailed analy­sis of Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which de­fines the im­peach­ment process for a Chief Jus­tice. 

Un­der the sec­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter refers the is­sue of re­mov­ing a Chief Jus­tice to the Pres­i­dent. The Pres­i­dent, through con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter, then ap­points a three-mem­ber tri­bunal con­sist­ing of ex­pe­ri­enced Com­mon­wealth ju­rists to in­ves­ti­gate the claim. 

The tri­bunal then re­ports back to the Pres­i­dent and ad­vis­es whether the is­sue should be re­ferred to the Privy Coun­cil. The Privy Coun­cil then ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent on what ac­tion, if any, should be tak­en. 

Kokaram sug­gest­ed that he was un­set­tled by the con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment, which is ar­guably in breach of the doc­trine of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween dif­fer­ent arms of the State. 

“The Prime Min­is­ter ef­fec­tive­ly has the whip in hand al­ways over the Chief Jus­tice. Not on­ly is the Ex­ec­u­tive in the shape of the Prime Min­is­ter in a plain­ly par­ti­san man­ner mak­ing the re­fer­ral and for­mat­ting the charge but al­so ap­point­ing the judges to hear the charges, set­ting up his own ma­chin­ery to re­move the Chief Jus­tice,” he said. 

Re­fer­ring to sev­er­al Com­mon­wealth im­peach­ment cas­es, Kokaram said the sec­tion is de­signed to strike a bal­ance be­tween ac­count­abil­i­ty and main­tain­ing the in­de­pen­dence of the Ju­di­cia­ry by pre­vent­ing ha­rass­ment over friv­o­lous or mi­nor in­frac­tions of ju­di­cial ethics. 

“There is no gain­say­ing that in­creas­ing de­mands on ac­count­abil­i­ty by the pub­lic on the per­for­mance of a judge serves to re­mind us of the im­por­tance of trust in our in­de­pen­dence: That it is not a gift or birthright but a val­ue that is to be earned and main­tained,” he said. 

Kokaram al­so had to con­sid­er whether the LATT should be forced to pay part of the le­gal costs in­curred by the State in de­fend­ing the law­suit on Row­ley’s be­half. De­spite rul­ing that the LATT al­so breached court rules for the fil­ing of law­suits when it brought the claim, he even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed that all the par­ties should bear their own le­gal costs. 

“Tak­ing in­to ac­count the pub­lic in­ter­est, in my opin­ion, in this case, there are no win­ners, nor losers,” he said. 

The LATT was rep­re­sent­ed by Dr Lloyd Bar­nett, Rishi Dass, Elaine Green, Kirk Ben­gochea, Im­ran Ali and Kiel Tak­lals­ingh. Dou­glas Mark Stra­chan, QC, Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, Justin Phelps, and Raphael Ajod­ha rep­re­sent­ed Row­ley. 

Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh, and Michelle Ben­jamin rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, while Archie was rep­re­sent­ed by John Je­re­mie, SC, Ian Ben­jamin, SC, Kei­th Scot­land, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, and Lau­ris­sa Mol­len­thiel.