I can’t remember exactly when or by whom, but early in my career as a journalist I was introduced to the 1936 Privy Council judgment in the case of Andre Paul Terence Ambard vs The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago.
Ambard was the editor-manager of the now-defunct Port of Spain Gazette and had published an article adjudged by judges in the colony to have constituted a contempt of court.
The writer of the article (not Ambard), had referenced two wildly inconsistent judicial rulings on very similar criminal proceedings and concluded that there was a need for “the greater equalisation of punishment with the crime committed.”
The Gazette article led to contempt of court proceedings and, consequently, a fine of £25 or imprisonment for one month. Ambard appealed the judgment right up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and eventually won the case.
New journalism recruits at the time of my entry and up to today continue to be introduced to this case. This is especially important since it includes Lord Atkin’s now widely-cited dictum that “Justice is not a cloistered virtue: she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful even though outspoken comments of ordinary men.”
This is useful to journalists, in particular, because it can contribute to the building of fearless and unfettered reporting on public issues and aid in understanding the public interest impact of journalism and a free press.
But the judgment also provides important guidance on the value of an institution that constitutes one of the more important pillars of civilised society—the judiciary.
For, while we learn the “cloistered virtue” bit by heart, we also read that even as “the path of criticism is a public way” and even “the wrong-headed are permitted to err therein”, imputing improper motives to those taking part in the administration of justice and “attempting to impair the administration of justice” are generally impermissible to the extent that they cause harm to the credibility of the system of justice.
All of this came to mind when on Monday, during the opening of the law term, I listened to the Chief Justice’s rhetorical flogging of those who have been engaged in what now amounts to rather undignified public conduct in an attempt to have him dislodged from office.
This is not to say that some important questions, as raised by the Law Association and others, do not remain to be answered, but that an accompanying hubristic hysteria has characterised much of the public discourse – some of which has the unmistakable flavour of political and tribal partisanship.
In my view, it is not any rational argument over law and ethics, but the vulgarity of ad hominem attack that has characterised much of the debate.
Sadly, much (not all) of it is emerging from a professional community that remains afflicted by chronic under-development, incompetence, and a reputation for single-minded greed. How often, to go back to Ambard, have we heard from advocates about the absence of even-handedness in the administration of justice? How much of a commitment to what the CJ describes as “continuing education” have we detected?
But much of the public discussion is being generated by partisans taking the cue from a pervasive political malignancy. Justice Archie himself spoke of a “malady” that has “infiltrated the psyche of the people” that has the potential to not only implant “disdain for institutions of the state” but which also has had the impact of empowering some “to tear down people and the institutions they lead.”
People who are gratuitously associating themselves with the tribal and defamatory features of the current campaign to have the Chief Justice removed need to understand the longer term impacts of what they are doing.
Mind you, this is not a statement on the work of the Law Association or of public-spirited individuals who are concerned about accusations of judicial misconduct. That, to me, is a separate issue.
It has to do with the opportunism of those who do not understand that undermining what appears to be—with a legislature and executive having their backs to the wall, the persistence of dysfunctional public institutions, and growing militarising of the police service—a last remaining bastion of democratic life in T&T. Beware.