Judiciary: Meeting of CJ, PM's teams dealt with administrative plans

THE Judiciary has defended a meeting between Chief Justice Ivor Archie, members of his executive, the Prime Minister and several Cabinet members saying it cleared up what the Judiciary is doing administratively and its planning process.

Responding to a media report, the Judiciary emphasised that the meeting was not between the Prime Minister and Archie. It said both Dr Rowley and Archie led a team at the meeting which the Judiciary called for some time ago.

"The meeting was mutually agreed to and was initially sought by the Judiciary quite some time ago. The Judiciary is not only an adjudicator body but is also an administrative body and its notes go to Cabinet for certain things. Cabinet gets individual notes which are building blocks to plans, some parts of which do not need Cabinet input. The Cabinet does not then necessarily understand the whole plan of the Judiciary and so in order to do things like provide staffing, approve funds, agree to new buildings, and address restructuring which may sometimes require legislation or subsidiary order, it is sometimes necessary to meet with members of the executive to put the pieces into perspective."

The Judiciary's comments comes a day after president of the Criminal Bar Association Israel Khan, SC, warned that the meeting clouds the separation of powers between the Government and the Judiciary.

The meeting on Wednesday took place a day before members of the Judiciary went before a joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament on National Security to discuss the administrative and logistical strategies of improving the delivery of justice.

Khan in a statement Friday claimed Archie had been summoned to attend the meeting, saying he should have advised Rowley that any meeting on the administration of justice should have been with Attorney General Reginald Armour.

The Cabinet is constituted with the Prime Minister and the Attorney General.

“It is commendable that the executive branch of government is concerned that, for whatever reasons, the Judiciary under CJ Archie is not delivering speedy justice to the people of this country. But it is a very dangerous precedent, under the separation of powers, for the Prime Minister to summons the Chief Justice to discuss this issue with him and his inner Cabinet. And on top of that, for the Judiciary to agree to a commitment to meet periodically to ensure that progress remains on course.”

In an initial media release on Thursday, the Judiciary said the executive members met with Rowley and Cabinet members to discuss the administration of justice.

“The meeting addressed administrative and logistical strategies to bring those components of the justice system under the control of separate arms of the State into more effective alignment and speed up justice delivery. Several immediate interventions were identified and agreed,” the release said.

The meeting between Rowley and Archie comes after Rowley at a public meeting on March 9, said the delivery of justice in TT is “unacceptably slow.”

“I have been PM for seven years, I have given the judiciary priority, hundreds of millions of dollars in resources. We have increased the numbers of masters and judges. We’ve cut hundreds of thousands of cases from the system, and I have not haven't seen any acceleration of justice in TT.”

Khan said it is “infra dig” for Rowley and Archie to be having such a meeting and in such a setting the Chief Justice, the third highest state official, will not have precedence over the Prime Minister. He summed up the meeting as laughable.

In it's release the Judiciary said: "The false narrative unfortunately may be construed as designed to provoke a surreptitious and dark image of the Chief Justice meeting with Cabinet Ministers for an improper motive. Nothing can be further from the truth. The Chief Justice heads the Administration of the Judiciary which has the administrative responsibilities that every organisation has."

He questioned if the meeting was in some way a return of favour for Rowley not initiating impeachment proceedings against Archie when there were allegations of misconduct brought against him.

“I say to you Chief Justice, you will always be under a cloud of suspicion by the public when dealing with the Prime Minister. Thus, you should be circumspect and extraordinarily careful in protecting the independent office of the Chief Justice and the Judiciary. The doctrine of separation of powers is sacrosanct and you cannot be obsequious in your official duties when dealing with the Office of the Prime Minister.”

Khan said the Chief Justice ought to have known that such a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions could not happen and opined that it was time for a commission of enquiry into why the judicial system is on the brink of collapse.

Two days after the meeting, the Judiciary, in a media release on Friday said Archie was out of the country on official business and Justice of Appeal Allan Mendonca was acting in his place.