Support for meeting with CJ

At least two High Court judges are supporting a call by their colleague Justice Carol Gobin for an urgent meeting with Chief Justice Ivor Archie to explain himself over recent allegations in a newspaper report. Sources said one of the judges is assigned to the Family Court while the other is in the Civil Court.

An email was sent by Gobin last Friday to all judges, including the Chief Justice, calling for an urgent meeting. Sources indicated that up to yesterday there was no response from Archie.

Meanwhile, the man named in the newspaper articles as being the recipient of a Housing Development Corporation (HDC) house on Archie’s recommendation has distanced himself from the issue. Dillian Johnson, in a television interview on Sunday, said he wanted no part of the “witch hunt” against Archie.

He said the newspaper reports were malicious and clearly orchestrated to attack the CJ. He also said he was being used as “bait”. Last week, Senior Counsel Martin Daly and former head of the Public Service Reginald Dumas also called on Archie to account while the Law Association said, while it was of the view that the charge levelled at the CJ was, as yet, unsubstantiated, there was concern that Archie, after meeting with the judges on the the issue of security, communicated with a friend connected with a private security firm, indicating that he had spoken with judges about their security.

The association’s secretary Elena Araujo said in the statement last week: “No further information is given in the article about the content or context of this communication. But the fact that it may have occurred and that it concerned a presumptively confidential meeting among members of the Judiciary about an obviously sensitive matter, call out for an explanation.”

The association said it, therefore, considered it would be prudent for the Chief Justice to publicly address the allegations. Archie returned to the country on the weekend.