Archie must answer

Senior Counsel 
Martin Daly
Senior Counsel Martin Daly

Senior Counsel Martin Daly and former head of the Public Service Reginald Dumas are calling on Chief Justice Ivor Archie to publicly address allegations contained in a newspaper report on Sunday.

In a joint statement yesterday, Daly and Dumas said there were two serious issues which emerged from the newspaper report which Archie has to answer to.

They said: “We consider it useful to distil for further consideration in the public domain two issues.

“It is our view that two serious issues emerged from the newspaper report:

1. The allegation of the association during the occasion of an official engagement in Guyana with a person with a criminal record arising out of the forgery of the signatures of two judicial officers.

2. The allegation that a solicitation was made to obtain alternative security arrangements for the judges of the Supreme Court from a private-sector company, which is undoubtedly a matter for a public procurement process.

“In the absence of a comprehensive response from the Chief Justice, the publication of these matters carries with it a significant potential for a negative impact on the institution of the Judiciary,” they warned.

On Wednesday, the Law Association issued a similar call. A release said the council of the association was of the view that the charge levelled at the CJ was as yet unsubstantiated, but was concerned about the report that, after the meeting with the judges, he communicated with a friend who was 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: “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 is in the Hague, Netherlands, for a meeting of the board of the International Institute for Justice Excellence, of which he has been made a director. He returns tomorrow.

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