Former Chief Justice, Satnarine Sharma, says former Justice Herbert Volney is not the only judge who compromised his position while on the Bench. In his memory, Justice Aeneas Wills and Justice Anthony Lucky both qualify as making overt political moves while being members of the judiciary. He recalls, too, that after serving as Opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) MP for Couva in the 1960s, Kenneth Lalla served as a temporary judge in 1981, and, in fact, declined an offer to be made permanent. Sharma was airing his views on the storm of controversy that broke a few days ago over whether former Justice Herbert Volney, with whom he worked for several years, was wrong in principle to hop virtually off the Bench straight into UNC party politics to contest the marginal St Joseph seat in the upcoming May 24 general election. Sitting Chief Justice Ivor Archie was not amused and has aired the view that Volney has indeed brought the Judiciary into disrepute.
"The point at issue is whether Volney acted with judicial propriety.
"I am rather reluctant to say that he did, but the point is when you put it against a background, it does not attain the significance that people attribute to it," said Sharma. Sharma, the country's seventh Chief Justice, who is convinced that he was hounded by the ruling PNM while in office until his resignation on January 24, 2008 when he reached 65, said there was no question that Volney was "wrong in principle," and that he had "compromised the independence of the judiciary" by his inopportune plunge into politics. He insisted there were judges before him who had upset the equilibrium of the Bench. Confirming that he worked with Volney for several years, Sharma offered: "I think he is a feisty, very independent fellow who doesn't take advice or consult as he should, rather than make a decision on his own."
Sharma dismissed any notion that since his retirement political parties had sought to bring him on board as an influential member who could sway voters. "My independence has remained fierce. All my judgments testify to that. I held in many cases for the Government; in some, against the Government." His considered view was the judicial brandy was still strong; it had not been watered down. "However, judges have to work at maintaining their independence," Sharma advised. Sharma, who read English author Lord David Owen's bestseller In Sickness And In Power, about how long-serving politicians are consumed by the power of their office to the stage of megalomania, said he believed the same scenario was being acted out today in T&T. "In Sickness and In Power is more relevant than we think," Sharma quipped.
