Justice Lucky responds to claims

Justice Gillian Lucky says Chief Justice Ivor Archie did not ask her for favours for Kern Romero – alleged to be a convicted fraudster and a friend of the CJ.

In a statement issued yesterday, Lucky said Romero was her client, but not when she was director of the Police Complaints Authority or after she was appointed a judge in September 2014. Lucky also said at no time did she know Romero was a convicted fraudster.

The judge’s statement was e-mailed to the media yesterday by assistant Registrar of the High Court Nirala Bansee-Sookhai.

In it, Lucky took issue with an article published in the Sunday Express January 7 edition, which carried a front-page headline that read: “CJ asked High Court Justice for favours for fraudster… Unlucky Judge,” and a secondary headline, “CJ asks Lucky to help fraudster friend.”

The statement sent on Lucky’s behalf said the newspaper article and headline contained “a number of inaccuracies/inferences” in relation to the judge which she considered it necessary to correct.

According to the statement, Romero was Lucky’s client when she was in private practice and her dealings with him are protected by legal professional privilege.

“There was no prior conversation between the Chief Justice and Justice Lucky in which the Chief Justice indicated that he was assisting Mr Romero following the death of his close relative, and no meeting with Justice Lucky was set up by him,” the statement added.

Lucky also denied requesting or accommodating a request from anyone, including the CJ, to hire anyone as a driver while she was PCA director.

The Sunday Express story alleged that during her tenure at the PCA, Lucky provided financial assistance to Romero at Archie’s request, and also hired a close friend of his as a driver.

Archie responded last month to some of the allegations against him, denying having suggested to judges they should hire a private security firm to provide personal security for them or that he recommended convicted fraudster Dillian Johnson – another alleged friend of his – for state housing.

He admitted that he recommended “some needy and deserving” people to the HDC in 2015, but denied recommending Johnson.

Last Friday – two days before the Sunday Express story on the CJ and Lucky – lawyers representing Archie issued a pre-action protocol letter to the media house, calling on it to desist from publishing fake photographs and defamatory allegations against him. According to the team of lawyers, led by former Attorney General John Jeremie, SC, the allegations made by the newspaper were defamatory and false and reflected “a campaign of false information directed against the Chief Justice.” The lawyers also said photographs and WhatsApp messages purportedly released by Johnson were confirmed by forensic experts to be photoshopped and fake. Independent technical experts, they said, had confirmed “unequivocally” that two photographs were “doctored” digitally and “are not genuine or truthful images but are photoshopped and manipulated images.”

The photographs were published in the Trinidad Express and broadcast by TV6, both of which are part of the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) group.

Attorneys for the Trinidad Express and TV6 are yet to respond to Archie’s lawyers’ letter, although the deadline for doing so expired on Tuesday.