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Monday, August 25, 2025

?Judges escape integrity net

by

20100423

Judges and mag­is­trates are ex­empt from fil­ing de­c­la­ra­tions with the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, in ac­cor­dance with the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act 2000.

Al­though Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones made that rul­ing in 2007, it was on­ly late last month that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie de­cid­ed to ap­peal that de­ci­sion. But his late ap­pli­ca­tion did not see the light of day, and yes­ter­day, the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion, and even or­dered the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to pay costs to the lawyers rep­re­sent­ing judges and mag­is­trates. The mat­ter was heard be­fore Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, Jus­tice Al­lan Men­don­ca and Jus­tice Gre­go­ry Smith. Fyard Ho­sein, SC, ap­peared for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, rep­re­sent­ed the judges and lawyers, while Stan­ley Mar­cus, SC, ap­peared for the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion. In his ap­pli­ca­tion to the court, Ho­sein said Jus­tice Jones gave judg­ment on Oc­to­ber 15, 2007, de­clar­ing that judges and mag­is­trates should not de­clare their as­sets to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. No ap­peal was ever filed by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. It was on­ly on Feb­ru­ary 9 this year that Je­re­mie saw the judg­ment and de­cid­ed to ap­peal.

But it took him more that six weeks to make the ap­pli­ca­tion to ex­tend the time, so an ap­peal could be filed. Ap­peals from High Court de­ci­sions must be filed with­in 28 days. Mar­tineau, in re­sponse, said from the out­set that the ap­pli­ca­tion should be dis­missed. He said judges and mag­is­trates who came to the Bench af­ter Jones' judg­ment would have ex­pect­ed that this in­tru­sive piece of leg­is­la­tion would not have found its way for them to file for them­selves and their spous­es. "This is a sit­u­a­tion where your right to pri­va­cy is in ques­tion...Who wants to sub­ject them­selves to that?" he asked.

Mar­tineau point­ed out that in De­cem­ber 2004, Je­re­mie told the Par­lia­ment that judges and mag­is­trates were ex­empt­ed from re­port­ing to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. An­oth­er ap­peal brought by TSTT against the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has been post­poned to June 29. In her judg­ment, Jones said mem­bers of State Boards must de­clare their as­sets.

Lawyers have asked the Court of Ap­peal to re­verse the Jones' find­ings over whether or not peo­ple who were mem­bers of statu­to­ry boards, such as the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, both of which were es­tab­lished not as pri­vate com­pa­nies, but by acts of Par­lia­ment, should have to de­clare their as­sets.


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