Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A group of re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions rep­re­sent­ing fe­male judges have crit­i­cised An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne over his now con­tro­ver­sial com­ments in re­la­tion to a judge in that coun­try.

The crit­i­cism was giv­en in a joint state­ment is­sued by the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Women Judges, the Com­mon­wealth of The Ba­hamas As­so­ci­a­tion of Women Judges, the East­ern Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Women Judges, the Guyana As­so­ci­a­tion of Women Judges and T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Women Judges last week.

The as­so­ci­a­tions stat­ed that they were grave­ly con­cerned by state­ments made by Browne last month, in which he took is­sue with ap­par­ent­ly le­nient sen­tences be­ing hand­ed down for vi­o­lent crimes by an un­named judge.

“As as­so­ci­a­tions of ju­di­cial of­fi­cers com­mit­ted to the rule of law, ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence and the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice through­out the Caribbean, we con­sid­er it nec­es­sary to add our col­lec­tive voice to those de­fend­ing prin­ci­ples which are foun­da­tion­al to every con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy in our re­gion,” they said.

“A state­ment by the head of the Ex­ec­u­tive that a judge who does not im­pose sen­tences con­sid­ered suf­fi­cient­ly se­vere should leave the coun­try or face de­por­ta­tion and des­ig­na­tion as per­sona non gra­ta can­not prop­er­ly be char­ac­terised mere­ly as ro­bust crit­i­cism of sen­tenc­ing pol­i­cy,” they added.

Not­ing that the Caribbean has a proud con­sti­tu­tion­al tra­di­tion found­ed up­on re­spect for the rule of law and in­de­pen­dence of its courts, they said, “Judges are re­quired to de­cide cas­es ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law, the ev­i­dence be­fore them, ap­plic­a­ble sen­tenc­ing guide­lines and bind­ing ap­pel­late au­thor­i­ty.”

The as­so­ci­a­tions stat­ed that they re­main com­mit­ted to con­struc­tive en­gage­ment on mea­sures de­signed to strength­en pub­lic con­fi­dence, im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness of crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems and pro­tect the safe­ty of the peo­ples of our re­gion.

“But on the in­de­pen­dence of the Ju­di­cia­ry, there can be no am­bi­gu­i­ty. An in­de­pen­dent Ju­di­cia­ry is not an ob­sta­cle to pub­lic safe­ty. It is one of the guar­an­tees of a free, safe and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety,” they said.

Fol­low­ing Browne’s com­ments on Au­gust 10, the heads of Ju­di­cia­ries from across the re­gion is­sued a state­ment chal­leng­ing his claims.

Re­spond­ing to the joint state­ment, Browne ad­mit­ted that ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence is vi­tal to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment.

“How­ev­er, it does not place ju­di­cial de­ci­sions or the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice be­yond rea­soned pub­lic crit­i­cism,” Browne said.

“Nor does it re­quire an elect­ed Gov­ern­ment to re­main silent when sen­tenc­ing out­comes raise se­ri­ous and re­cur­ring ques­tions about pub­lic safe­ty, leg­isla­tive pol­i­cy, and pub­lic con­fi­dence,” he added.

He said that his re­marks were made af­ter he re­ceived grave con­cern from law en­force­ment of­fi­cials and cit­i­zens about le­nient sen­tences in firearm and statu­to­ry rape cas­es.

“As Prime Min­is­ter, I have a solemn du­ty to safe­guard the wel­fare of the peo­ple of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da,” he said.