Less than 24 hours after the Law Association passed a no confidence motion against it, the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) came under fire yet again, this time from a High Court judge.
Justice Carol Gobin yesterday criticised JLSC members as a lawsuit against it filed by Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge, seeking disclosure of details surrounding three controversial judicial appointments, came up for hearing in the Port-of-Spain High Court.
Sturge filed the lawsuit last month after the JLSC failed to respond to his requests under the Freedom of Information Act, for details of the selection process used for the appointments of former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, magistrate Avason Quinlan-Williams and attorney Kevin Ramcharan as High Court judges in April.
Gobin’s comments yesterday came after the JLSC’s lawyer, Ian Roach, appeared at the hearing, sought to apologise for the delay in the response and answered nine of 12 questions raised by Sturge.
“It is regretted that a response was not forthcoming before now, but this was due to a number of unfortunate events which militated the JLSC from doing so,” Roach said in a letter given to the court. Gobin did not appear satisfied with Roach’s response or explanation.
“We judges are servants of this body with the responsibility to be dealing with these things (appointment of judges). Is it that they are not bothering to answer? Why should we extend further time? Is it that they ignored the letter?” Gobin asked.
The matter was eventually adjourned by Gobin to next Friday.
In his letter responding to Sturge’s questions, Roach said the four JLSC members who set and marked the exam were Chief Justice Ivor Archie, retired judges Roger Hamel-Smith and Humphrey Stollmeyer and acting chair of the Public Service Commission (PSC) Parvatee Anmolsingh-Mahabir.
Responding to questions over the psychometric testing done on applicants who passed the exam, Roach said it was not a criteria for selection but rather a tool to determine an applicant’s suitability. He admitted that the testing was not contained in a legal notice for the selection of judges, but had been used for the selection of an Appeal Court judge previously. The questions that were not answered was a request for a copy of the test, a list of the applicants and the marks they scored on the exam.
