Whole situation too sad for words

My heart bled today for Steven Johnson, older brother of Jason Johnson, who was the victim in the Brad Boyce case. Following on the heels of Herbert Volney’s belated admission that he erred in the case, the Trinidad Guardian interviewed Steven to ascertain his feelings in the wake of Volney’s epiphany. Too sad for words was Steven’s lament that his parents (who both died within days of each other last year) are no longer around to hear the former judge’s words.

But my sadness soon faded into anger at the cavalier and non-repentant Volney who issued the apology in the same way that he might order a gin and tonic from a waiter in a restaurant. 

Doesn’t this former judge have any appreciation of the serious and critical role of a high court judge in the administration of justice? How is it that it took decades for Volney to admit that he made a mistake? I refuse to believe that in the wake of the uproar and fury from numerous public and private quarters in the wake of his actions in that case that he has only now realised that he erred. 

Volney now calls on the Attorney General to resign, when there is overwhelming evidence to demonstrate that there is absolutely no foundation to Rowley’s claims that the Attorney General was participated in the exchange of e-mails read out in Parliament on Monday. 

Why didn’t Volney resign when several legal luminaries and indeed several quarters of the public expressed the view that the ends of justice had been defeated at his hands in the Brad Boyce case? Indeed I shudder to think of all the other cases which were conducted under his watch which may have resulted in a travesty of justice.

Albert Hudson,
Carenage