Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

While the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) re­mains un­der pub­lic scruti­ny fol­low­ing re­ports of con­cerns raised by judges over the re­gion­al court’s man­age­ment, the court has moved to change the way judges are as­signed to pre­side over cas­es.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the CCJ an­nounced re­vised arrange­ments for the as­sign­ment of ju­di­cial pan­els.

It stat­ed that all sev­en judges of the court, in­clud­ing CCJ Pres­i­dent Win­ston An­der­son, will sit on all pan­els, sub­ject to a judge be­ing for­mal­ly ex­cused for a le­git­i­mate rea­son.

“The arrange­ments are in­tend­ed to pro­mote con­sis­ten­cy, trans­paren­cy, and flex­i­bil­i­ty in the al­lo­ca­tion of ju­di­cial work and to sup­port the ef­fi­cient ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” the court said.

“The three pan­el lead­ers will com­prise the Pres­i­dent of the Court and the two most se­nior judges,” it added.

The new arrange­ment took ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly.

In a re­lease is­sued in re­sponse, As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers pres­i­dent Saira Lakhan ques­tioned the ba­sis and tim­ing of the change.

“Re­quir­ing every judge to sit on every pan­el may cre­ate an ap­pear­ance of trans­paren­cy, but it rais­es le­git­i­mate ques­tions as to whether this is a knee-jerk re­ac­tion to what has en­tered the pub­lic do­main or a care­ful­ly re­searched re­form suit­ed to the CCJ’s unique ju­ris­dic­tion, work­load and op­er­a­tional re­quire­ments,” Lakhan said.

She al­so ques­tioned whether the move was an­nounced fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion with the judges.

“Against the back­ground of con­cerns in the pub­lic do­main about the al­leged­ly heavy-hand­ed im­po­si­tion of in­ter­nal prac­tices, I sin­cere­ly hope that this de­ci­sion was reached col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, com­mands the con­sen­sus of the Court, and rep­re­sents a work­able in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form rather than a tem­po­rary re­sponse to pub­lic con­tro­ver­sy,” she said.

“If, how­ev­er, this was an­oth­er uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sion tak­en with­out mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion, it is un­like­ly to re­solve the un­der­ly­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns that have en­tered the pub­lic do­main,” she added.

The in­ves­tiga­tive re­port pub­lished by the T&T Ex­press claimed that An­der­son had been ac­cused by his col­leagues of man­ag­ing the court in an au­thor­i­tar­i­an and dic­ta­to­r­i­al man­ner.

It high­light­ed com­plaints from judges in email ex­changes over a wide range of is­sues, in­clud­ing the im­po­si­tion of a ju­di­cial dress code, pur­port­ed “pan­el fix­ing” and at­tempts to in­flu­ence the out­come of cas­es.

The Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (RJLSC) has ini­ti­at­ed a trans­par­ent and in­de­pen­dent re­view of the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against An­der­son.

“The com­mis­sion recog­nis­es the se­ri­ous­ness of these mat­ters and the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing them in a man­ner that pro­tects pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the court and the broad­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice through­out the Caribbean,” it said.

“As a re­sult, the RJLSC be­lieves that these con­cerns are best ad­dressed through the es­tab­lished in­ter­nal gov­er­nance mech­a­nisms of the court and the com­mis­sion, and through a trans­par­ent and in­de­pen­dent re­view un­der­tak­en in the best in­ter­est of the re­gion,” it added.

Last Fri­day, An­der­son is­sued a lengthy press re­lease in which he de­nied any wrong­do­ing and sought to re­spond to the in­di­vid­ual com­plaints raised by his col­leagues.

Mean­while, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Guyana Op­po­si­tion Leader Azrud­din Mo­hamed and his busi­ness­man fa­ther Nazar “Shell” Mo­hamed, are call­ing on the CCJ not to al­low An­der­son to take part in pro­ceed­ings against their clients un­til al­le­ga­tions of bias are ad­dressed.

The at­tor­neys – Roys­dale Forde, Siand Dhur­jon and Damien Da Sil­va – have sent an Au­gust 14, 2026 let­ter to the Reg­is­trar of the CCJ, Guyana’s high­est and fi­nal court, in­di­cat­ing that the Mo­hameds were “deeply dis­turbed and dis­tressed by the al­le­ga­tions and have formed the strong and rea­son­able view that they may not have re­ceived the fair hear­ing which is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed to them”.

The let­ter has been copied to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Anil Nand­lall as well as the at­tor­neys for the Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs, Onei­dge Wal­rond and the Chief Mag­is­trate, Judy Latch­man.

On Ju­ly 29, 2026, the CCJ ruled against the Mo­hameds, dis­miss­ing their ap­peal and lift­ing an in­ter­im stay, clear­ing the way for the lo­cal mag­is­trates’ court to re­sume ex­tra­di­tion com­mit­tal pro­ceed­ings re­quest­ed by the Unit­ed States.

The Mo­hameds are want­ed by US law en­force­ment of­fi­cials on mon­ey laun­der­ing, wire fraud and mail fraud linked to their gold trad­ing busi­ness.

Their lawyers have said that if a set of doc­u­ments and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al are not pro­vid­ed le­gal ac­tion would be tak­en. The move by the Mo­hameds fol­lows re­ports of Jus­tice An­der­son’s in­ter­ac­tion last year with Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali and then Op­po­si­tion Leader Aubrey Nor­ton re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment of the Chan­cel­lor of the Ju­di­cia­ry.

Last week­end Jus­tice An­der­son, in ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the Mo­hameds’ case, said there were ro­bust and can­did ex­changes among the judges dur­ing de­lib­er­a­tions and prepa­ra­tion of the judge­ment, as with many oth­er cas­es in ap­pel­late courts in the Com­mon­wealth.

He said in the Mo­hameds case, the judges ex­pressed dif­fer­ing views re­gard­ing as­pects of the rea­son­ing and the man­ner in which cer­tain is­sues should be ar­tic­u­lat­ed in the fi­nal judg­ment