Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes says the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sies in the Ju­di­cia­ry is caus­ing her grief.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view on Tues­day with CNC3’s Hema Ramkissoon to mark her first year in of­fice, Weekes spoke about her ex­pe­ri­ences over the last 12 months.

The full in­ter­view will be broad­cast on CNC3 on Sun­day at 7.30 pm and pub­lished in the Sun­day Guardian.

Asked about the con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing some of her for­mer col­leagues in the Ju­di­cia­ry, the Pres­i­dent said: “It be­yond both­ers me, it grieves me, un­like any of the by­standers who are look­ing on, I was there for twen­ty years, I know every­body who is in­volved in this present mat­ter from the point of view from the Ju­di­cia­ry. I am very sad­dened by the fact that right now there does not ap­pear to be in the Ju­di­cia­ry that love­ly spir­it of ca­ma­raderie and trust. There was a re­ly­ing on each oth­er that I per­son­al­ly en­joyed when I got there, it was there once. It was very strong, and it was a won­der­ful thing and so the com­par­i­son is some­thing that trou­bles me deeply. I feel par­tic­u­lar­ly for the young new judges who have stepped in­to this im­broglio.”

Over the last three years, the Ju­di­cia­ry has faced a slew of at­tacks in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly.

The al­le­ga­tions against the Chief Jus­tice, the fall­out from the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer chief mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar as a judge (who left 53 cas­es un­fin­ished), the com­po­si­tion of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, have all been sub­ject­ed to pub­lic scruti­ny.

The Prime Min­is­ter is con­sid­er­ing a re­port on whether to in­voke im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings against Archie who has been ac­cused of us­ing his of­fice to get State hous­ing for sev­er­al peo­ple.

Some po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and mem­bers of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty have called on the CJ to step down but de­spite the bat­tered im­age, the Pres­i­dent is hope­ful that the once pris­tine im­age of the Ju­di­cia­ry will be re­stored one day.

“One can on­ly hope, how­ev­er, you go, you will even­tu­al­ly reach bot­tom. One can on­ly hope we don’t reach there and af­ter that, we can on­ly hope that we rise.”

Weekes was sworn in­to of­fice on March 19, 2018, as the sixth Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, the in­au­gu­ra­tion marked the be­gin­ning of a new era.

As the first fe­male to hold the of­fice, the pop­u­la­tion saw her pres­ence as a breath of fresh air; a con­tin­u­ing trend in fe­male lead­er­ship af­ter the coun­try was giv­en its first fe­male Speak­er of the House and Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.

Dur­ing her in­au­gu­ra­tion ad­dress, she de­scribed her role as a hum­ble first ser­vant of the peo­ple. One year on, she in­sists that role has not changed.

As she walks in­to the of­fice, her staff take their re­spec­tive po­si­tions.

She takes her po­si­tion in front of the cam­eras, ready to have a tell-all on the last year in of­fice— her tran­si­tion from pri­vate cit­i­zen to the na­tion’s high­est of­fice hold­er.

When asked how she is ad­just­ing to her new role, the Pres­i­dent used a myr­i­ad of ad­jec­tives. “I would say in­ter­est­ing, chal­leng­ing, grat­i­fy­ing, frus­trat­ing some­times all in one day and re­cent­ly ex­hil­a­rat­ing.”

While some sec­tion of Pres­i­dent’s House is still un­der con­struc­tion due to the dam­age sus­tained in the 2018 earth­quake, Weekes still us­es the of­fice for her of­fi­cial du­ties.

Her of­fice re­flects who she is, her per­son­al­i­ty, her trav­els and her faith.

Over­look­ing her desk, there’s a car­i­ca­ture paint­ing de­pict­ing im­ages of all her col­leagues from the ju­di­cia­ry but the smil­ing faces on the paint­ing seem a far cry from the im­ages dom­i­nat­ing the me­dia to­day.

The im­age of the Ju­di­cia­ry is some­what bat­tered, lines of the di­vi­sion are drawn, and com­men­ta­tors in­sist all is not well on Knox Street.