For­mer Chief Jus­tice, Sat Shar­ma says just the same way he was tar­get­ed by the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment, so too will oth­er CJs, once they speak out. Shar­ma was shar­ing his views on Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie's sting­ing con­dem­na­tion on Wednes­day of Gov­ern­ment's draft con­sti­tu­tion, which he stat­ed threat­ens the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry, as he cham­pi­oned the ide­al of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers to pre­vent tyran­ny. Archie al­so voiced dis­plea­sure with cut­backs in fund­ing, to which Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira re­spond­ed that all min­istries were al­lo­cat­ed less mon­ey than they sought in the 2009-2010 bud­get. Last Fri­day, the Gov­ern­ment in­vit­ed Archie to meet to dis­cuss con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form pro­pos­als.

The draft con­sti­tu­tion was cre­at­ed by round-ta­ble talks af­ter pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions were held on an ear­li­er draft cre­at­ed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke. Agree­ing whole­heart­ed­ly with Archie's state­ments, Shar­ma said those in high of­fice had a ten­den­cy to be pun­ished for speak­ing the truth and open­ly. "Who could tes­ti­fy to that than me. I am a typ­i­cal ex­am­ple. This is a ques­tion of d�j� vu." Shar­ma fears that like him, Archie will be tar­get­ed. "That is part of the job. The ju­di­cia­ry has al­ways been an easy and sit­ting tar­get for the ex­ec­u­tives. We know that," he con­tin­ued."This is a thing all Chief Jus­tices have had to do. We've had our strug­gles, you know, at times. All we want­ed was com­plete au­ton­o­my."

Shar­ma was the first CJ to be charged with im­prop­er­ly seek­ing to in­flu­ence Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls in his de­ci­sion in the Bas­deo Pan­day in­tegri­ty tri­al. Shar­ma said rather than ac­cede to Archie's re­quest for com­plete in­de­pen­dence "they (Gov­ern­ment) are in fact un­der­min­ing the ju­di­cia­ry by with­hold­ing funds and do­ing the com­plete op­po­site." He plead­ed with the Gov­ern­ment that this was not the right time to dig dirt. His­tor­i­cal­ly, the ju­di­cia­ry has nev­er been a high pri­or­i­ty "be­cause it was nev­er a po­lit­i­cal con­stituen­cy. It has al­ways been in a state of ne­glect," Shar­ma said.

Com­ment­ing on the con­sti­tu­tion, Shar­ma said if it is what he per­ceives it to be, "it's go­ing to be a se­ri­ous threat to the rule of law. "If we don't ap­ply the rule of law and in­stead, it be re­placed by the rule of man... then we are fin­ished. It cer­tain­ly is far reach­ing. Any­one who holds the pull string can con­trol you." Shar­ma said the ju­di­cia­ry must be kept strong and alive since this was of ut­most im­por­tance. Speak­ing about the 51 con­sul­ta­tions on the draft con­sti­tu­tion which the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to hold in the coun­try and chaired by Dr Hamid Ghany, Shar­ma said this should not be pre-or­dained. "These are not po­lit­i­cal meet­ings. You can't put any tar­get down for peo­ple." Shar­ma said unions, NGOs and the pub­lic should al­so have a live­ly de­bate and open dis­cus­sions on the con­sti­tu­tion. (SH)