CJ Archie on witness stand in Ayers-Caesar case next week

CHIEF JUSTICE Ivor Archie will be put in the hot seat next week, when he will be questioned by attorneys for former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar in her legal challenge of her short-lived judicial appointment.

In November last year, the Privy Council dismissed a procedural appeal brought by the Judicial and Legal Service Commissioner (JLSC), which Archie chairs.

The JLSC was seeking to reverse an order by the Court of Appeal that Archie and several former members of the commission had to testify and be cross-examined in the case.

Archie is expected to be questioned on what transpired on April 27, 2017, when Ayers-Caesar says she was forced to resign as a puisne judge, two weeks after being sworn in by former president Anthony Carmona.

Ayers-Caesar is represented by Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, Ronnie Bissessar and Vijaya Maharaj.

Monday’s hearing will be heard virtually, in keeping with the CJ’s covid19 practice directions, which ban in-person hearings. A public notice published on the Judiciary’s website on September 12 said the video link for the case will be adjusted daily and made available to those who want to witness the proceedings.

In a decision of the Court of Appeal in May 2019, the judges held that the judge who denied Ayers-Caesar’s applications was plainly wrong in his assessment.

They said the cross-examination of the CJ and the others may assist the court in resolving issues raised in the former chief magistrate’s claim “as well as in assessing the integrity and credibility of the competing versions of what happened.”

Ayers-Caesar’s lawyers will also cross-examine three of the JLSC’s witnesses: its secretary Coomarie Goolabsingh and Archie’s former associates and current High Court Masters Sherlanne Pierre and Jade Rodriguez.

Ayers-Caesar will also be questioned by attorneys for the JLSC.

Justice David Harris is presiding over Ayers-Caesar’s claim. Four days – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday – have been set aside for the hearing of the matter.

Senior Counsels Russell Martineau, Deborah Peake and Ian Benjamin, along with attorney Ian Roach and Marcelle Ferdinand, represent the JLSC. Senior Counsel Reginald Armour and attorneys Ravi Nanga, Ravi Heffes-Doon and Diane Katwaroo appear for the Attorney General.

In her lawsuit, the former chief magistrate is claiming she was pressured by Archie and the JLSC to resign after it was disclosed she left 52 preliminary inquiries unfinished when she took up an appointment as a judge.

Ayers-Caesar was appointed on April 12. She resigned 15 days later amid public uproar over the unfinished cases. She is also claiming the JLSC acted unlawfully in seeking her resignation as a judge and that it unlawfully procured her resignation and acted unlawfully in treating as effective her consequent purported resignation.

She said she was pressured by the JLSC to resign, in that she was told to sign an already prepared resignation letter or her appointment would be revoked by the President.

“I was distraught and felt I had no choice but to sign the letter of resignation and media release and to accede to resigning since it was clear to me that my resignation had already been orchestrated and that this was a done deal,” she has said in her lawsuit, in which she seeks reinstatement as a judge as well as compensation for breaches of her constitutional rights, and loss of earnings.

In defence of the claim, the JLSC has argued that it considered the matter sufficiently serious to trigger a disciplinary enquiry and felt Ayers-Caesar should be given the option of withdrawing from the High Court bench and to return to the magistracy to complete her part-heard cases.

It also contends that she “nodded” and accepted responsibility to resolve her unfinished matters and, in order to do so, tendered her resignation as a judge to return to the magistracy to finish her work.

Ayers-Caesar has asked for declarations that her constitutional rights to protection of the law and from section 137 – which sets out the procedure for the removal of a judge – were contravened by the JLSC and that the commission’s decision to force her resignation was unlawful.

She is also seeking compensation for the breach of her rights.