JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

CJ takes blame

by

20131214

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie has tak­en full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for his fail­ure and that of oth­er judges to de­liv­er jus­tice in a time­ly man­ner.In a three-page state­ment is­sued by the ju­di­cia­ry's court and pro­to­col man­ag­er Jones P Madeira yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Archie promised to speed up the de­liv­ery of judg­ments by set­ting laud­able bench­marks for judges and mas­ters to meet next year.

Over last few weeks, Archie and oth­er judges of the Supreme Court have faced un­prece­dent­ed crit­i­cism for their de­lay in hand­ing down judg­ments, some of which are out­stand­ing for more than four years. Yes­ter­day's state­ment said the ju­di­cia­ry "views with ut­most se­ri­ous­ness all of the rel­e­vant con­cerns ex­pressed. It ac­knowl­edges the prob­lem and takes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the state of af­fairs."

It ac­knowl­edged that "time­li­ness and qual­i­ty must co-ex­ist in all de­ci­sion mak­ing if there is to be sus­tain­able pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go."But as a caveat, the ju­di­cia­ry stat­ed that while it would do all in its pow­er to speed up the de­liv­ery of jus­tice, judges are "con­scious of the fact that a bad judg­ment de­liv­ered speed­i­ly can cre­ate bind­ing prece­dent that se­ri­ous­ly un­der­mines con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice."

Among the fac­tors Archie raised in de­fence of the ju­di­cia­ry was an in­creased work­load of the Court of Ap­peal, a vast num­ber of pro­ce­dur­al ap­peals, the va­can­cies in the Court of Ap­peal, be­cause of the death of Jus­tice Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo, who died in Ju­ly, and the re­tire­ment of Jus­tice Humphrey Stollmey­er in De­cem­ber 2012.

On No­vem­ber 25, two death row in­mates, Lester Pit­man and Ger­ard Wil­son, took le­gal ac­tion against Archie, ac­cus­ing him of vi­o­lat­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights over his fail­ure to de­liv­er their judg­ments for close to four years. The con­vict­ed killers even threat­ened to re­move the chief jus­tice from of­fice for what they termed was ju­di­cial mis­con­duct.Archie, who was among the three judges who heard their ap­peals, had re­served judg­ment in March 2010 in Pit­man's case and in No­vem­ber 2009 in Wil­son's ap­peal.

Both judg­ments are list­ed to be de­liv­ered next Wednes­day.Last Mon­day, Archie con­vened a meet­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, of al­most all the 40 Supreme Court judges and three mas­ters of the High Court, to dis­cuss the pub­lic crit­i­cism lev­elled against the ju­di­cia­ry over its fail­ure to dis­pense jus­tice speed­i­ly.

At that meet­ing, Archie, 53, spoke of peo­ple plot­ting against him to force him out of of­fice, but as­sured he would not al­low any pres­sure to cause him to demit of­fice be­fore his re­tire­ment age of 65, ac­cord­ing to re­li­able ju­di­cial sources.Archie told the judges he was aware that some peo­ple were "cau­cus­ing on the week­ends," but did not iden­ti­fy who were his con­spir­a­tors, one ju­di­cia­ry in­sid­er said.

Ju­di­cial sources said Archie was more than like­ly point­ing fin­gers at fel­low judges who have been crit­i­cal of him for fail­ing to per­form ef­fec­tive­ly, or en­sure that those judges who were fail­ing to per­form were dis­ci­plined.In his state­ment yes­ter­day, Archie said he was "sur­prised at wide­spread re­ports of a plot to have him demit of­fice.""No such as­ser­tion against the state was made," the state­ment said.

At the meet­ing, Jus­tice An­dre des Vi­gnes, in a two-page pre­pared state­ment, chas­tised Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in, for her re­cent state­ment to the Na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form Com­mis­sion.Gob­in de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to speak out in her per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty dur­ing the judges' meet­ing last Mon­day.Des Vi­gnes him­self was the sub­ject of pub­lic crit­i­cism over de­lays in the hear­ing of a high-pro­file civ­il case of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion against its for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Calder Hart.

He pub­licly de­fend­ed him­self ear­li­er this month, say­ing that sev­er­al fac­tors led to an ap­par­ent de­lay in Ude­cott's $65 mil­lion law­suit.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Leslie Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Leslie Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Leslie Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Leslie Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Jesus Explosion 23: Visiting priest feeds RC faithful

22 hours ago
Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Courtesy Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Courtesy Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League

Israel Khan honoured by community cricket league

22 hours ago
SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa steps up Caricom collaboration after summit

Yesterday
Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

ANISTO ALVES

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

ANISTO ALVES

Argentina wants to export world-famous beef to T&T

Yesterday