Tunapuna housewife Shirley Sookar, who had to file legal action to get her judgment after the judge hearing her case resigned, is now challenging the constitutionality of a ruling by Justice David Myers. Myers migrated to Barbados but was reappointed a judge to deliver her ruling among others. Two years after resigning from the judiciary, Myers was appointed a temporary judge to give judgment in Sookar’s matter.
In a constitutional motion filed against the State, Sookar, who is being represented by attorneys Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Larry Lalla and Alvin Ramroop, said for the past ten years she had been denied full use of her property, at 25 Fairley Street, without due process. A dispute over the property arose when Sookar’s relationship with her relatives became strained. Sookar also contended the delay in judgment also affected her husband’s health. He died in February 2004 while the judgment was pending.
“On many days I would sit and cry in utter frustration at the thought that I was being deprived of the free use of my property and there was nothing I could do about it,” Sookar said in an affidavit. “I was very hurt and disappointed at the ‘justice’ I was receiving at the hands of our court system.” The grounds of application said Myers, upon his resignation, had no jurisdiction to deliberate and give a judgment in 2009. It added Myers, who resigned in 2007, could not legally or constitutionally determine Sookar’s case.
Sookar contended that the appointment of Myers as an acting judge for the sole purpose of delivering his outstanding judgments was constitutionally null and void. Sookar’s case is of greater significance now, after Chief Justice Ivor Archie reappointed retired judge Sebastian Ventour for a day, on Thursday, to deliver three outstanding judgments. Prior to this, however, Ventour resigned from his position on the Integrity Commission, throwing the body into a tailspin.