Judge blanks Ish and Steve

ONLY 14 of the 53 cases left unfinished by former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar when she took up a position as a judge in April, last year, are left to be determined.

Justice Carol Gobin provided the update in a recent decision in which she dismissed an application by businessmen Steve Ferguson, Ishwar Galbaransingh, Brian Kuei Tung and others to join the State’s interpretation lawsuit over the short-lived judicial appointment of Ayers-Caesar.

The three businessmen, as well as Peter Cateau and Tyrone Gopee, all of whom are facing fraud charges out of the construction of the Piarco International Airport, filed the application because the magistrate hearing their case retired earlier this year leaving their preliminary inquiry incomplete.

In her decision, Gobin said to grant the applications to intervene “will inevitably result in further delay in determination of the interpretation summons which was filed just over one year ago. “This consequence is undesirable and unjustifiable,” she said.

According to Gobin, she has been cognisant of the need for the interpretation summons to be dealt with expedition “because of the understandable and undeniable claims of the several accused persons, whose part heard trials were affected by the elevation of the chief magistrate to the bench, of extreme hardship, unfairness and prejudice.”

“ I have not been insensitive to the feelings of the families of victims and other affected persons,” she said.

According to her, the Director of Public Prosecution said that of the 53 matters left unfinished, only 14 are now left to be determined.

“Given the public importance of the matter, an early resolution may go some way to restoring some measure of public confidence in the system. An outcome which gives rise to the possibility of further embarrassment to the system has to be avoided.”

She also said she was not persuaded by the arguments put forward by the Piarco accused for their reasons to intervene, saying their claim had no place in the AG’s summons before her and would add complexity to the narrow case left for her to determine.

Gobin also said she considered the prejudice to be suffered by other accused whose cases were affected by the elevation of the former chief magistrate since one of them had to be adjourned while the preliminary issue of the joinder application had to be determined.

“So far the decision in the connected matter has already been adjourned on two occasions.

The delay has been unavoidable but nonetheless embarrassing and a matter of regret. It is

not fair to the parties in the connected matter to have further postponements of that judgment to a more distant date.”

With the applications of the Piarco accused having been refused, Gobin directed that submissions be filed on the interpretation summons before December 12.

She has promised to make every effort to determine the matter before the end of the year.

In the interpretation lawsuit, the AG is seeking to determine Ayers-Caesar’s status of a magistrate when she took up a judicial appointment in April last year. She resigned after two weeks amid public furore over the 53 cases she left unfinished, when she accepted the position. The case is also seeking to determine if Ayers-Caesar could have been allowed to return to complete the cases or what measures could have been taken to resolve the issue.

Some of the accused persons directly affected have agreed to have their cases restarted by Ayers-Caesar’s successor Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle, and have since been completed.