Derek Achong

A for­mer chief jus­tice and two Se­nior Coun­sel have agreed that de­lays in de­liv­er­ing judg­ments is not suf­fi­cient grounds for the im­peach­ment of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment on the pro­posed ac­tion threat­ened by two death row in­mates on Thurs­day, for­mer chief jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, and Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, agreed that such ac­tion against a Chief Jus­tice could on­ly be tak­en in ex­treme cir­cum­stances.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Shar­ma, who was al­so sub­ject to sim­i­lar pro­ceed­ings dur­ing his tenure in 2005, said he be­lieved the over three-year de­lay in both men's ap­peals was not enough to com­pel the Prime Min­is­ter to in­voke her pow­ers un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion."It (im­peach­ment) is a last re­sort. I don't think an iso­lat­ed case can in­voke that. It can not be done willy-nil­ly like with a pub­lic ser­vant," Shar­ma said.

Shar­ma said such pro­ceed­ings would like­ly af­fect the en­tire ad­min­stra­tion of jus­tice as the Ju­di­cia­ry was one of the coun­try's ma­jor in­sti­tu­tions.In 2005, for­mer chief mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls made a com­plaint over al­leged mis­con­duct by for­mer chief jus­tice Shar­ma.For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning then ad­vised for­mer pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to set up a tri­bunal to in­ves­ti­gate the al­le­ga­tions and Shar­ma was sus­pend­ed.

How­ev­er, Shar­ma mount­ed sev­er­al le­gal chal­lenges, which cul­mi­nat­ed with a Privy Coun­cil ap­peal in which he was cleared of the al­le­ga­tions.He al­so re­ferred to his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence with im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings, while say­ing: "I had to fight tooth and nail against the al­le­ga­tion."Shar­ma al­so warned that im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings should not be abused to "bring down peo­ple."

Ma­haraj al­so said he be­lieved im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings against Archie were not nec­es­sary and said he be­lieved the threat was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed."I don't like the smell of this at­tempt to im­peach the Chief Jus­tice for de­lays in judg­ments. It smells of a po­lit­i­cal con­spir­a­cy to get rid of him," Ma­haraj said.

The Is­sue

In the let­ter, Criston J Williams, who is rep­re­sent­ing the two con­vict­ed mur­der­ers–Lester Pit­man and Ger­ard Wil­son–told Roberts he in­tend­ed to send a com­plaint to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ask­ing her to ex­er­cise her dis­cre­tion un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion to ad­vise Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona to ini­ti­ate im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings against Archie for his role in the de­lays.

Williams is al­so con­tend­ing that the de­lay of more than three years in the judg­ments have breached his clients' con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. Williams has giv­en the Ju­di­cia­ry sev­en days to re­spond to the let­ter be­fore he writes to the PM.

Oth­er re­spons­es

Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan said while the de­lays were a cause of con­cern, he did not think im­peach­ment pro­ceed­ings against the Chief Jus­tice were nec­es­sary but he ques­tioned Ma­haraj's as­ser­tion that the move was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed."He is speak­ing with a po­lit­i­cal mind and not that of a con­cerned for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al," Khan said.Khan said un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, ac­cused peo­ple were guar­an­teed a fair tri­al but not a speedy one.

"While it may be a con­cern with the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion and lawyers, there must be a good rea­son for the de­lays in those cas­es," Khan said.Like Ma­haraj, Khan sug­gest­ed there was need for re­form in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, which, he said, would help re­duce de­lays in crim­i­nal tri­als.An e-mail was sent to Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Seenath Jairam ask­ing for a com­ment but he had not re­spond­ed up to late yes­ter­day.

The T&T Guardian at­tempt­ed to con­tact sev­er­al oth­er se­nior lawyers for com­ment but they all said they could not com­ment as they were in­volved in some of the out­stand­ing ap­peals in one way or an­oth­er.Calls to the Ju­di­cia­ry's in­for­ma­tion and pro­to­col man­ag­er Jones P Madeira went unan­swered.