The most senior practicing attorney at the Criminal Bar, Israel Khan SC, says former judge and chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar “has no legal authority (locus standi) to recommence her part heard matters” in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court.
Khan said “from the time she resigned as chief magistrate her term as chief magistrate came to an end (functus officio) and she can no longer function in that position. She is now a new magistrate and the Chief Justice and the Judicial and Legal Services Commission should have known that or else the entire Judicial and Legal Services Commission is inept.”
Khan said “the entire Judicial and Legal Service Commission including the Chief Justice should resign.” Alternatively, he said the President should set up a commission of enquiry to investigate the fiasco.
However, he said he had known Ayers-Caesar for two decades and noted “she is of impeccable character and the release made by the Chief Justice on behalf of the JLSC is self-serving and it is an attempt to destroy the good name and good character of Ayers-Caesar.”
The CJ’s release, he said, in effect accused her of being dishonest by withholding information about the part-heard matters, of being irresponsible for failing to complete all the matters and of being inept in her ability to handle the transition from the Magistrates’ Court to the High Court.
In Khan’s view, Ayers-Caesar was “the sacrificial lamb in this scenario.” But he said she should not sacrifice her good name and character to save the CJ and JLSC and urged her “to protect her good name and integrity and speak out on the matter.”
He also wants the other JLSC members to tell the country what happened in the matter.
Martin Daly SC meanwhile said it could be that the JLSC did “insufficient due diligence of their own.” He said the CJ, as head of the JLSC, must tell the country “what did Ayers-Caesar tell the commission and what are the facts, why did they appoint her as a judge without doing due diligence? If the processes were so rigorous how did this happen?”
Daly said now that the appointment has gone wrong “they have taken a step to bring the Judiciary into disrepute.”
Former justice minister and High Court judge Herbert Volney agreed that the President needs to set up a commission of enquiry. He said he did not believe Ayers-Caesar did not tell the CJ what her part heard list looked like. He said “surely the Chief Justice must have asked and the new judge must have told him the true position.”
It is for this reason he said an enquiry is important, “because under oath you have to tell the truth or else you can be charged with perjury. It is the only way to get the truth.”
He agreed that Ayers-Caesar “cannot pick up the stuff that she left behind. An act of Parliament has to cure that problem. It is a judicial crisis,” Volney said.
“They have to appoint her like it is her first day on the job. She became non-functus when she resigned as chief magistrate, she was no longer a magistrate and the Chief Justice cannot just reappoint her and everything becomes functus again. It does not work like that.”
Volney said the way the law operates “she has to start from scratch, you start something, you abandon it, the matters will have to be started as new.” He said the only way “to correct” what has occurred and for her to continue with the matters she left would be an act of parliament.”
Volney said evidence Ayers-Caesar told the CJ of her part-heard list was contained in the release sent out by the Court and Protocol Officer Alicia Carter Fisher which spoke to the fact that she had paper committals and there would be no issue with the appointment.
He said: “That tells you how the CJ was thinking at the time. Why this turnabout today to make the woman look as if she lied? That is unfair to her.”
