KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has called for pub­lic dis­course to be con­duct­ed with “mu­tu­al re­spect” fol­low­ing com­ments by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in re­sponse to its crit­i­cism of the process used to ap­point the new Chief Jus­tice.

On Thurs­day, LATT, while wel­com­ing Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh as T&T’s new Chief Jus­tice, raised con­cerns about the lack of con­sul­ta­tion in the ap­point­ment process.

In a sharp re­sponse, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I have no re­gard for any­thing the eat-ah-food filth of the hi­er­ar­chy of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion says... I made no rec­om­men­da­tion as to whom to choose out of a pool of Ap­peal Judges that was sug­gest­ed by the Ho­n­ourable Act­ing Pres­i­dent.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, LATT reaf­firmed its statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to com­ment on mat­ters af­fect­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the rule of law, stress­ing that it acts “in­de­pen­dent­ly, with­out fear or favour, and in line with the high­est tra­di­tions of the le­gal pro­fes­sion.”

“Pub­lic dis­course on le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly among hold­ers of high of­fice, should be con­duct­ed with mu­tu­al re­spect and re­gard for the in­sti­tu­tions that safe­guard our democ­ra­cy,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said.

LATT added that it re­mains com­mit­ted to con­struc­tive en­gage­ment with all branch­es of the State and would con­tin­ue to serve the pub­lic in­ter­est by pro­vid­ing “fair and prin­ci­pled guid­ance” on is­sues af­fect­ing the rule of law, while up­hold­ing the dig­ni­ty of its role in na­tion­al life.

The con­tro­ver­sy arose fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh as T&T’s ninth Chief Jus­tice by Act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, one day af­ter for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 23.

Just hours be­fore the 2 pm swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les had called for the event to be halt­ed, ar­gu­ing that the Act­ing Pres­i­dent did not pro­vide ad­e­quate time for the re­quired con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions with both the Prime Min­is­ter and her­self.

Beck­les said she had un­til 1 pm to sub­mit her opin­ion—on­ly one hour be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny be­gan.

“I don’t think any­body dis­putes that Chief Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh is com­pe­tent,” Beck­les told re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. “He has been a teacher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, teach­ing ethics. That’s not the is­sue. The is­sue is that I was giv­en very clear­ly the time­frame—6.30 in the evening, while I was in Par­lia­ment, to bring a let­ter that had some er­rors; 8.30 in the morn­ing to deal with that er­ror; and then, at two o’clock, you ap­point­ed. That is not suf­fi­cient con­sul­ta­tion.”

Ear­li­er this week, Beck­les de­scribed the cor­re­spon­dence she re­ceived from the Act­ing Pres­i­dent as “ma­te­ri­al­ly de­fi­cient,” not­ing that it lacked key de­tails such as the ré­sumés and se­nior­i­ty of el­i­gi­ble Court of Ap­peal judges. She said the lim­it­ed time­frame pre­vent­ed her from pro­vid­ing “an in­tel­li­gent con­sid­er­a­tion and an in­tel­li­gent re­sponse” in her con­sti­tu­tion­al role.

How­ev­er, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, de­fend­ed the ap­point­ment, prais­ing Boodoos­ingh’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and in­tegri­ty.

“Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh brings to the of­fice a wealth of knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence, and unim­peach­able cre­den­tials. His qui­et sense of in­tegri­ty, dig­ni­ty, and pur­pose will un­doubt­ed­ly in­spire re­newed pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” Ram­lo­gan said.

He added that the Act­ing Pres­i­dent’s swift de­ci­sion was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sound, not­ing that prece­dent ex­ists for ex­pe­dit­ed ap­point­ments in ur­gent cir­cum­stances.

“At a time when the of­fice of Chief Jus­tice stood va­cant fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, any pro­longed act­ing ap­point­ment would have risked un­der­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the sta­bil­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the Ju­di­cia­ry,” he said.

“There is no ba­sis to im­pugn ei­ther the pro­ce­dur­al le­git­i­ma­cy or the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­pri­ety of this ap­point­ment. The na­tion can have full con­fi­dence in the con­ti­nu­ity and in­tegri­ty of ju­di­cial lead­er­ship un­der Chief Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh.”