Dar­ren Ba­haw

dar­ren.ba­haw@guardian.co.tt

Lead Ed­i­tor-at-Large

For­mer Chief Jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma may not be re­mem­bered for his eru­dite ju­di­cial acu­men or his rad­i­cal re­form of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Ju­di­cia­ry.

In­stead, his tenure was over­shad­owed by se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of at­tempt­ing to in­flu­ence the ver­dict in a crim­i­nal tri­al against for­mer prime min­is­ter, Bas­deo Pan­day, and the DPP’s de­ci­sion to in­struct the po­lice to charge one of the coun­try’s lead­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar sur­geon’s for mur­der.

Al­though the al­le­ga­tions were nev­er proven in a court of law - Shar­ma felt as though he was con­vict­ed in the court of pub­lic opin­ion.

He died yes­ter­day at the age of 76, at his home, sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly af­ter los­ing his bat­tle with can­cer.

At the helm of the Ju­di­cia­ry, he was sup­port­ed in the Ap­peal Court by some of the top le­gal minds of that era: in­clud­ing Mustapha Ibrahim, Lloyd Gopeesingh, Roger Hamel-Smith, Li­onel Jones, Jean Per­manand, Zain­ool Ho­sein, Mar­got Warn­er, An­tho­ny Lucky, among oth­ers.

He took over the reins of the Ju­di­cia­ry af­ter for­mer Chief Jus­tice Micheal de la Bastide re­tired in 2002 and over­saw the con­tentious im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules which dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed the way in which civ­il cas­es are heard and de­ter­mined.

He was al­so cred­it­ed for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fam­i­ly Court, a di­vi­sion of the High Court and mag­is­tra­cy, of­fer­ing a more amenable en­vi­ron­ment to de­ter­mine mat­ters del­i­cate in na­ture such as the fu­ture of chil­dren.

His un­can­ny abil­i­ty to cut to the chase in crim­i­nal ap­peals and even com­plex civ­il mat­ters was ad­mired by sea­soned se­nior prac­ti­tion­ers.

When­ev­er he sat as pres­i­dent of the Ap­peal Court tri­bunal, Shar­ma took con­trol of the hear­ing. His point­ed ques­tions to pros­e­cu­tors and de­fence at­tor­neys un­rav­elled moun­tains of case law, as he adopt­ed a com­mon-sense ap­proach in re­solv­ing dis­putes of law and ev­i­dence.

Shar­ma’s land­mark rul­ing on the rights of part­ners in com­mon-law re­la­tion­ships was adopt­ed by this coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court, the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don and has stood the test of time.

Oth­er im­pactive rul­ings in­clude the re­quire­ment for peo­ple ac­cused of crim­i­nal of­fences to counter-sign their ad­mis­sions in a po­lice sta­tions di­aries to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of their ad­mis­sion and in­su­late it from al­le­ga­tions of co­er­cion. Shar­ma’s rul­ing on the 48-hour pe­ri­od po­lice are al­lowed to de­tain a sus­pect with­out charge has al­so been cit­ed as defin­ing case law and still ap­plies to­day.

Shar­ma was gung-ho in clear­ing the back­log of cas­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly mag­is­te­r­i­al ap­peals, and pi­o­neered the au­dio-dig­i­tal record­ing sys­tem in the mag­is­tra­cy to speed up the de­liv­ery of jus­tice.

At the end of his ca­reer, Shar­ma sur­round­ed him­self with his fam­i­ly and close friends who nev­er aban­doned him in his dark­est hour.

He felt be­trayed by those of whom he trust­ed and be­lieved there was a con­spir­a­cy among top pub­lic of­fice hold­ers to hound him out of of­fice.

Shar­ma re­tired in 2008 and was the first Chief Jus­tice in the West­ern hemi­sphere to face an im­peach­ment tri­bunal. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was trig­gered by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Man­ning had giv­en Shar­ma an ul­ti­ma­tum in a pri­vate meet­ing - re­sign or face an im­peach­ment tri­bunal - the for­mer chief jus­tice chose the lat­ter.

Af­ter a lengthy and ex­pen­sive hear­ing, the three-mem­ber tri­bunal, chaired by Lord Mustill, rec­om­mend­ed to then-pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards that the ques­tion of re­moval of the Chief Jus­tice from of­fice should not be re­ferred to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in De­cem­ber 2007.

In Ju­ly 2005, armed po­lice sur­round­ed Shar­ma’s Mar­aval home to ex­e­cute a war­rant for his ar­rest on a charge of at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice by try­ing to in­flu­ence the then-at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and then-DPP Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son to drop the mur­der charge against Prof Vi­jay Narayns­ingh.

With­in min­utes, the for­mer Chief Jus­tice was able to get an emer­gency hear­ing in the High Court and a judge grant­ed an in­junc­tion to pro­hib­it the po­lice from ar­rest­ing Shar­ma, an un­prece­dent­ed sce­nario.

Those al­le­ga­tions were nev­er de­ter­mined and the charges were nev­er for­mal­ly filed as the mat­ter was re­ferred to be de­ter­mined via me­di­a­tion, which was nev­er com­plet­ed.

The sur­geon and his sec­ond spouse, Seero­mani Ma­haraj-Narayns­ingh, were ac­cused of hir­ing a con­tract killer to mur­der his es­tranged wife, Chan­dra Narayns­ingh. They were even­tu­al­ly freed.

Al­most a year af­ter the first damn­ing al­le­ga­tions, then Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc­Ni­colls com­plained to Je­re­mie that Shar­ma at­tempt­ed to in­flu­ence his de­ci­sion in the Pan­day case.

The com­plaint was made near­ing the con­clu­sion of the crim­i­nal tri­al against the for­mer prime min­is­ter who was charged with fail­ing to dis­close a Lon­don bank ac­count held joint­ly with his wife to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

Mc­Ni­colls claimed Shar­ma, on more than one oc­ca­sion at­tempt­ed to in­flu­ence him to rule in favour of the for­mer prime min­is­ter and had even re­quest­ed a draft copy of his de­ci­sion pri­or to de­liv­ery.

The Chief Mag­is­trate said he avoid­ed the Chief Jus­tice be­fore he hand­ed down his rul­ing in the Pan­day mat­ter - he found the for­mer prime min­is­ter guilty and sen­tenced him to two years in jail.

Pan­day lat­er ap­pealed and was grant­ed a re­tri­al. The charges were even­tu­al­ly stayed on the ba­sis that there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sug­gest that they were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

In No­vem­ber 2006, Shar­ma was for­mal­ly charged with at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice in the Pan­day mat­ter.

Four months lat­er, Mc­Ni­colls opt­ed to not tes­ti­fy and Shar­ma was dis­charged.

Mc­Ni­colls nev­er dis­closed the rea­son for his shock­ing de­ci­sion even up to the time of his death on De­cem­ber 14, 2012.

In a bold move af­ter he was dis­charged, Shar­ma dust­ed off his ju­di­cial robes and re­sumed of­fice un­til his re­tire­ment in Jan­u­ary 2008.

He was suc­ceed­ed by Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ivor Archie, who is now the cen­tre of a le­gal quag­mire, over al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion is chal­leng­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s de­ci­sion not to in­voke Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions against the sit­ting Chief Jus­tice.