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Senior Counsel Martin Daly says the Government has tried to “duck” the matter involving an investigation by the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) into allegations made in the public domain against Chief Justice Ivor Archie as he accused Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi of making “unscholarly” statements on the issue. Daly is cautioning that the Ag should “not be taking sides,” in the matter.
Daly said the time may be coming soon when representation may have to be made to the Prime Minister to trigger 137, in light of the current situation where the matter now before the Privy Council may not go in favour of the CJ Archie.
Speaking on the CNC3 Morning Brew, Daly said while the country has to wait for the written reasons from the Privy Council “it is unlikely that we are looking at a victory for the CJ’s team.”
On Monday the five Law Lords of the Privy Council Johnathan Sumption, Robert Reed, Brian Kerr, Nicholas Wilson and Baroness Brenda Hale, reserved judgment in Archie’s appeal in which he is challenging the decision of three of his colleagues in the Court of Appeal to dismiss his lawsuit over an investigation launched by LATT into the allegations of misconduct.
Hours after the CJ’s office issued a press release indicating for the “purpose of clarification,” that the issue before the Privy Council is “not whether the Chief Justice is guilty of misconduct,” but the “main issue is whether LATT has the authority to investigate the Chief Justice (or for that matter any judge) with a view to finding fact.”
Daly laughed when he heard the contents of the press release. He said it was clear that the CJ’s appeal went “very badly” and the release from his office was a “puerile attempt to contain damage that the appeal is likely to be lost.”
He said whatever the Privy Council writes the fact is that matters surrounding the CJ are again going to “assume extremely high profile and the only persons that will lose is the reputation of the judiciary and the image of the country. The longer this matter drags on with all the fights and so on the worse it is going to be.”
The learned Senior Counsel noted that the “particular allegations of misconduct” against Archie are “very important.” He noted that it is difficult to contemplate how the CJ will return to the Court of Appeal to preside there when “with great regret and words chosen very carefully so as not to inflame the situation, the three most senior judges have been critical of his refusal to give full answers.”
They had done so in giving their ruling in the matter he said “at personal risk of being abused themselves by zealots.”
Daly said the reputation of the judiciary is taking a “battering,” and cautioned that if the judiciary “becomes a laughing stock or the subject of general criticism the country looks bad, it affects al sorts of things how people feel about the judiciary generally it is very jaundiced already and how foreign investors view the validity of the country’s legal infrastructure.”
He said AG Al-Rawi “cannot keep ducking it, ducking it, ducking it in the manner in which he has been doing,” because all of it will come to a head once the written judgment of the Privy Council comes in.
According to Daly, the AG had made “some very unscholarly statements about the threshold of 137 had not been triggered, he has no business making those statements. He does not have the facts and he ought not to be taking sides.”
But Daly said if the matter assumed high profile again all the focus will turn to what the Prime Minister will do, “he will have to make a number of assessments including political assessment as to what is more harmful to his political party and the Government’s standing if to leave it alone and duck it or the trigger 137.”
Expressing concern about statements made by the AG on the matter, Daly said he is “poised to have some very choice words to say to him (the AG) in the future if the government does not delink itself from a defence of the Chief Justice.”
He said as AG, Al-Rawi “cannot continue to say in his cavalier fashion that the threshold of 137 is not triggered, he cannot know that.”
He said the government must pay attention to the matters as they unfold “and depending on what guidance the privy Council gives, representations may be made to the Prime Minister to trigger 137,” he would not hazard a guess as to what will happen if such representation is made.