Fran­cis Joseph

Re­tired judges want a re­vi­sion to their pen­sion pack­ages so they can sur­vive. They want their pen­sion pack­ages to re­flect to­day's cost of liv­ing. Their pleas have fall­en on deaf ears, so last week, six re­tired judges met with Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards at Pres­i­dent's House. The re­tired judges say that in­creas­ing food prices, the cost of liv­ing, and the high cost of medicare, have pushed some of them close to pover­ty. "Some of these judges have high med­ical bills, but the pen­sions which they start­ed re­ceiv­ing more than ten years ago, are just not enough to see them through," a source close to the for­mer judges added.

The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that the six judges held dis­cus­sions with Richards, hop­ing to re­vive their first ef­forts ten years ago. The six judges were Jus­tices Zain­ool Ho­sein, Cle­bert Brooks, Ivor Black­man, Li­onel Jones, Jean Per­manand and Ralph Nar­ine. The source said the re­tired judges first made an ef­fort to have their pen­sion pack­ages re­vised some ten years ago to the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion. When they thought that their rec­om­men­da­tions would meet a favourable re­sponse, the 2001 gen­er­al elec­tions were held, re­sult­ing in the 18-18 tie. The fol­low­ing year, an­oth­er elec­tion was held and the PNM won 20-16. The source said af­ter Richards was ap­point­ed Pres­i­dent in 2003, a del­e­ga­tion of re­tired judges met with him. "The Pres­i­dent showed sym­pa­thy for us, and we re­al­ly felt that our pleas would have fall­en on some­one's ears," the source added.

Four re­tired judges–Ho­sein, Brooks, Nar­ine, and George Edoo (the for­mer Om­buds­man), met with Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning at his re­quest, but their rec­om­men­da­tions were turned down. Since then, the for­mer judges have formed the Re­tired Judges As­so­ci­a­tion, with a mem­ber­ship of just over 20. Since the start of their cam­paign, five of the judges died–James Davis, Harold Koy­lass, Ger­ard Des Iles, Richard Crane and Teles­ford Georges. The source point­ed out that at a pre­vi­ous meet­ing with Richards, Georges came from Bar­ba­dos to be part of the del­e­ga­tion. The source point­ed out that judges lose when they re­tire.

The source added, "They no longer have dri­vers, and when they get old and sick, they can­not dri­ve, so they are left to fend for them­selves. They no longer have ac­cess to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, so they have to take the traf­fic, and as hap­pened on more than one oc­ca­sion, judges who presided in the crim­i­nal courts, have been abused and threat­ened by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. They no longer have use to the VIP lounge at Pi­ar­co Air­port." The source con­tin­ued, "Those fa­cil­i­ties should nev­er have been tak­en away. It is just a small group of re­tired judges, and it would not cost the gov­ern­ment any sig­nif­i­cant amount. Added to that, re­tired judges can­not re­turn to prac­tice at the bar for ten years, that is un­heard of any­where else in the world.