sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has brushed aside crit­i­cisms from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) that the ap­point­ment of Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh as the na­tion’s ninth Chief Jus­tice was “a has­tened and trun­cat­ed process,” de­clar­ing she has “no re­gard for any­thing the eat-ah-food filth in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion says.”

LATT yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern over trans­paren­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion in the ap­point­ment process.

LATT, in its state­ment, con­grat­u­lat­ed Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh on his el­e­va­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing his “tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion to the ju­rispru­dence of Trinidad and To­ba­go” and his “ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice in ed­u­ca­tion as a lec­tur­er at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School.”

How­ev­er, the LATT not­ed that the process lead­ing to the ap­point­ment ap­peared to have fall­en short of the con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dards out­lined in Sec­tion 102 of the Re­pub­lic’s Con­sti­tu­tion, which re­quires the Pres­i­dent to con­sult both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion be­fore nam­ing a Chief Jus­tice. Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les had al­so crit­i­cised the process, say­ing there was no con­sul­ta­tion with the Op­po­si­tion.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion said the con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion re­quires the Pres­i­dent to con­sult and that ad­e­quate time be giv­en for con­sid­er­a­tion of the pro­pos­al.

“Giv­en the ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly short pe­ri­od of time over which ‘con­sul­ta­tion’ oc­curred in this in­stance, it is high­ly un­like­ly that any of these set­tled prin­ci­ples was sat­is­fied. It is of ut­most im­por­tance that an ap­point­ment to the high­est of­fice in our Ju­di­cia­ry is ground­ed in trans­paren­cy and in ac­cor­dance with the pa­ra­me­ters of our Con­sti­tu­tion,” LATT wrote.

But speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed a let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 22, ad­dressed to Act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, in which she wrote: “I agree that Your Ex­cel­len­cy should se­lect a Judge from the Court of Ap­peal bench to re­place Chief Jus­tice Archie. I have no pref­er­ence.”

When con­tact­ed re­gard­ing LATT’s crit­i­cisms, the Prime Min­is­ter wrote: “I have no re­gard for any­thing the eat-ah-food filth of the hi­er­ar­chy of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion says. As you can see from my let­ter, I made no rec­om­men­da­tion as to whom to choose out of a pool of Ap­peal Judges that was sug­gest­ed by the Ho­n­ourable Act­ing Pres­i­dent.”

She said it ap­peared that “some peo­ple have a se­lec­tive mem­o­ry,” not­ing, “Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma re­tired on Jan­u­ary 23, 2008, and Ivor Archie was sworn in as CJ on Jan­u­ary 24, 2008.”

De­spite the dis­qui­et, the As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pressed full con­fi­dence in Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh’s abil­i­ty to car­ry out the du­ties as the coun­try’s Chief Jus­tice. “We are very con­fi­dent in the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of Mr Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh JA to take on the lead­er­ship of our Ju­di­cia­ry and wish him every suc­cess dur­ing what we an­tic­i­pate shall be an ex­cep­tion­al­ly pro­duc­tive and vi­sion­ary tenure.”

Mean­while, head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan, SC, ap­plaud­ed the ap­point­ment of Boodoos­ingh as Chief Jus­tice, say­ing it was “based on his mer­it, abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty, both as a ju­rist and an or­di­nary good cit­i­zen.”

Khan re­called the “bac­cha­nal” which en­gulfed for­mer chief jus­tice Archie with the al­le­ga­tions of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, which caused Boodoos­ingh to point out that “all is not well on Knox Street, (Ju­di­cia­ry) as he called up­on Archie to demit of­fice.

“Our new Chief Jus­tice is fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent and strong, and the CBA ex­pects him to put the many wrong things with­in the ju­di­cia­ry right so that the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem will ren­der jus­tice for all,” Khan said.

Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la, in a Face­book post, said he took is­sue with the process used to ap­point a Chief Jus­tice. He said un­der Sec­tion 102 of the Con­sti­tu­tion con­sul­ta­tion is re­quired, and said what in fact oc­curred was “high­ly un­sat­is­fac­to­ry.”

How­ev­er, Lal­la said he worked with Boodoos­ingh be­fore the Third As­size Court at the San Fer­nan­do High Court, de­scrib­ing him as fair, straight­for­ward, and ap­proach­able.

He said Boodoos­ingh was an ex­treme­ly com­pe­tent and knowl­edge­able pros­e­cu­tor. Lal­la al­so said he was of the firm be­lief that Boodoos­ingh would serve the coun­try with dis­tinc­tion, not­ing he was one who was re­spect­ed and ad­mired in le­gal cir­cles.