A civil war is looming within the judiciary between Chief Justice Ivor Archie, as head of the Judiciary, and Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard over the legality of restarting some 53 part-heard cases left in abeyance when then chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar was appointed a High Court judge.
On May 24, after a meeting with the president and vice-president of the Law Association, members of the Criminal Bar Association, acting Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle Caddle, the Registrar of the Supreme Court and Gaspard, Archie said a decision was made to restart the 53 matters.
Yesterday, Gaspard advised Busby-Earle Caddle not to act on the “urgings outside of her courtroom.” He said it would be prudent of her to hear submissions from his office and from the attorneys in the 53 matters before a decision is made regarding her restarting them.
Gaspard strenuously objected to the restarting of preliminary inquiries, saying that the acting Chief Magistrate may not have the power to do so in the absence of some form of communiqué from the Judiciary detailing that Ayers-Caesar had resigned or otherwise permanently removed from her position prior to being appointed a High Court judge, a position she subsequently relinquished.
“The DPP does not know for a fact that Mrs Ayers-Caesar resigned. This is a serious matter and needs serious consideration and your worship should trod with caution,” Gaspard advised.
Responding to him, Busby-Earle Caddle said she was instructed to restart the matters. She pointed to one defence attorney who did not object to the case being aborted and restarting, to which Gaspard said it was no enough for her to rely on the non-objection of the defence to continue in the aborting and rebirthing of cases, some of which stemmed from 2009.
One of the matters that came up before the acting Chief Magistrate involved Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, which was one of the matters that triggered objections to Busby-Earle Caddle’s power to restart cases.
Abu Bakr’s matter before then chief magistrate Ayers-Caesar had neared its end with her finding that a prima facie case had been made out against him following the State’s closing their case. Ramdeen, who represented Abu Bakr yesterday, asked that Busby-Earle Caddle recuse herself from the matter and not make any pronouncement on it, or adjourn it, since she was part of the meeting that sought to restart the 53 cases without any representation from Abu Bakr’s attorneys.
Ramdeen added that it was not fair or proper for that to have been done. He read from a document dated April 27, which stated that Ayers-Caesar had been reinstated as a magistrate and therefore the acting Chief Magistrate had no legal authority to restart any matters in the absence of any documentation that the then chief magistrate was no longer part of the magistracy.
It was finally agreed that all the transcripts in Abu Bakr’s matter, which had been adjourned to June 29, be given to the Office of the DPP and the defence attorneys for Gaspard to “make an informed decision.”
Other cases thereafter followed this particular slant, with defence attorneys challenging the validity of the court to abolish and restart matters and requesting that they too receive transcripts of the cases.
—Jensen La Vende
