State should should pay for restarts

Opposition Senator and attorney Gerald Ramdeen has said the State should pay the expenses of those people whose cases were left incomplete following the appointment of former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar to a high court judge.

Ayers-Caesar left some 53 cases unfinished.

However, in a 22-page judgement on Thursday, Justice Carol Gobin said neither the Summary Court Act nor the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act gave the power to continue a part-heard case before a different magistrate.

She cited the case of Akilli Charles whose murder trial would have to be restarted although it was at an advanced stage when Ayers-Caesar left to take up her new position in 2017.

Ramdeen yesterday said Gobin’s decision demonstrated the “dark position” the administration of justice had found itself in following Ayers-Caesar’s appointment.

“It demonstrates factually the catastrophe that occurred with respect of the appoint of the former chief magistrate as a judge and most importantly the oppression that the persons who have been incarcerated in the case of Akilli Charles for seven years without bail, the oppression and the hardship they must go through as a result of no fault of their own.”

He added, “The state should have volunteered to stand the expenses of those persons who must now restart those preliminary inquiries because the one thing that not many people understand is that these people are presumed innocent under the constitution.”