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Friday, July 4, 2025

Hinds’ claim that criminals have friends in Judiciary sparks anger

Judges want apology

by

Derek Achong
791 days ago
20230504

The Ju­di­cia­ry has con­demned a con­tro­ver­sial state­ment made by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds al­leg­ing that crim­i­nals have friends with­in that fra­ter­ni­ty.

The Ju­di­cia­ry broke its si­lence on the is­sue af­ter ten of the 16 High Court Judges as­signed to the civ­il di­vi­sion of the Supreme Court called for an of­fi­cial re­sponse to Hinds’ state­ment on Wednes­day.

De­scrib­ing the state­ment as un­for­tu­nate, the re­lease said: “The Ju­di­cia­ry notes that gra­tu­itous state­ments such as those made by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter have a dan­ger­ous ef­fect of un­der­min­ing pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry and the rule of law and as such have no place in so­ci­ety.”

In a tele­vised state­ment on Mon­day, Hinds sought to ad­dress a con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit brought by firearm deal­er Brent Thomas over his pros­e­cu­tion for firearm of­fences, which was up­held by High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad last week.

Dur­ing the event, Hinds re­port­ed­ly stat­ed that “crim­i­nals have friends every­where in this coun­try. They have them in the Po­lice Ser­vice, they have them in the Cus­toms, in the Im­mi­gra­tion, in the De­fence Force, they have them in the Ju­di­cia­ry, they have them in Par­lia­ment.”

On Wednes­day, how­ev­er, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, is­sued a press re­lease de­fend­ing Hinds. He stat­ed that af­ter view­ing Hinds’ state­ment and hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with him (Hinds), he felt that he (Hinds) nev­er in­tend­ed to be­smirch the Ju­di­cia­ry or its ju­di­cial of­fi­cers.

Ar­mour said: “I am sat­is­fied that it was not the in­ten­tion of the min­is­ter, in any way, to im­pugn the in­tegri­ty of the Ju­di­cia­ry of this coun­try, ei­ther in any par­tic­u­lar mat­ter or gen­er­al­ly.”

But in a email thread af­ter Ar­mour is­sued his state­ment, which was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the judges, in­clud­ing Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, all called for the Ju­di­cia­ry to is­sue a “strong and un­equiv­o­cal re­lease and con­dem­na­tion of the state­ment along with a de­mand for an apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion.”

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, who ini­ti­at­ed the dis­course with the Ju­di­cia­ry’s Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er Carl Fran­cis, sug­gest­ed that Hinds’ state­ment was not am­bigu­ous.

“If there is any in­fer­ence to be made, one can ar­guably say that the gen­er­al re­mark that crim­i­nals have friends in the Ju­di­cia­ry was al­so a point­ed at­tack at the au­thor of the judg­ment,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

“The very fact that a re­mark can be made with­out any im­me­di­ate re­sponse from our side that crim­i­nals have friends in the Ju­di­cia­ry not on­ly un­der­mines the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, but im­pacts up­on the se­cu­ri­ty of each mem­ber of the Ju­di­cia­ry who may be per­ceived as friends of crim­i­nals,” he added.

Jus­tice Karen Reid con­curred with Jus­tice Ram­per­sad.

“The re­mark was most un­for­tu­nate and in this cli­mate where it ap­pears that the Ju­di­cia­ry has been un­der con­tin­u­ous at­tack in po­lit­i­cal dis­course. This mat­ter must be swift­ly and strong­ly dealt with,” she said.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad, who was in­volved in an in­ci­dent last month where Hinds ques­tioned his of­fi­cial vis­it to the Port-of-Spain State Prison, al­so weighed in on the is­sue.

“What is hap­pen­ing is sim­ply un­ac­cept­able. With each pass­ing week, the at­tacks and over­steps by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ue un­abat­ed,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

In his email, Jus­tice Ricky Rahim said he came to the same con­clu­sion as his col­leagues af­ter watch­ing Hinds’ state­ment sev­er­al times.

“I am of the view that this state­ment may be viewed as an in­cur­sion over the bound­ary be­tween the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Ju­di­cia­ry and as a stab at the heart of ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

“It casts a wide net that may have the po­ten­tial of bring­ing the en­tire Ju­di­cia­ry in­to dis­re­pute. It does not ap­pear to be a fair com­ment from which we are by no means im­mune,” he added.

He sug­gest­ed that a strong state­ment from the Ju­di­cia­ry would al­so shield non-ju­di­cial staff.

“As you are aware, the Ju­di­cia­ry con­sists of thou­sands of hard­work­ing cit­i­zens through­out the length and breadth of this coun­try who de­serve to be pro­tect­ed from un­war­rant­ed ac­cu­sa­tions,” he said.

Oth­er judges who made the call for a re­trac­tion were Jus­tices Car­ol Gob­in, Joan Charles, Na­dia Kan­ga­loo, Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well, Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams. Jus­tice Allyson Ramk­er­rysingh, who pre­sides in the fam­i­ly di­vi­sion, al­so called for a re­trac­tion and an apol­o­gy.

How­ev­er, the Ju­di­cia­ry’s re­sponse to the call from the ma­jor­i­ty of its judges in the civ­il di­vi­sion was not warm­ly re­ceived by all those who clam­oured for it.

One judge, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, sug­gest­ed that it was too tame in the cir­cum­stances.

“Goes to show how mis­guid­ed the pri­or­i­ties of the Ju­di­cia­ry are,” the judge said.

“When 10 of the 16 civ­il judges, many of whom rarely come out of their com­fort zone, say this is wrong...it tells you some­thing,” the judge added.


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