I WISH to briefly add my voice to some aspects of the CCJ debacle that held major headlines throughout the Caribbean over the past week. First things first, the person or entity responsible for the leaking of internal court emails should be roundly condemned. The Bar Association of Guyana (BAG) did exactly that and they came in for a good tongue lashing from no less a person than the inimitable Nigel Hughes together with a myriad of local political figures, including the Opposition Leader. As a result of the strong political overtones and seemingly anti-CCJ slants these emanations took, the court was exposed to some degree of erosion of public confidence.
Whether one takes a single cursory glance or a forensic dissection of those email exchanges, it is immediately apparent that those emails are nothing more than everyday internal expression of strong opinions among professional colleagues. It is also clear that the emails were leaked with calculated malice to embarrass the President of the CCJ. It is also immediately apparent that nothing in those emails rise to the level of “a court in crisis” deserving of “fixing” beyond the robust internal self-regulating and self-adjusting mechanisms already built into the discursive management apparatus of the court.
Therefore, the salt-in-wound approach taken by Nigel Hughes and others was wholly unnecessary and seems to point to unfulfilled petty political grouse. My own guess is that this approach has some history to it. That history cannot be divorced from the long series of political cases tried before the CCJ that delivered many judgements opposition elements determined to be adverse to their political interest and are still salty about these outcomes.
The CCJ, hitherto, has been blameless but mischievous political minds were like ‘setting fowls’ ready to pounce. They saw this as their opportunity to strike, this was their gotcha moment. Ah ha, I knew it, we lost some of those cases maybe because of panel fixing and attempts to influence decisions judges.
In most of the politically charged cases out of Guyana, the side that lost never had a snowball’s chance in hell. Politically contentious and highly charged cases spanning the March 2018 Bharat Jagdeo third term case right up to the ongoing Azruddin Mohamed extradition case, it doesn’t take a genius to determine that every single one of those cases were rightly determined on their individual merit. The one or two cases that were close went the way of the legal team with superior command of their legal arguments. So, for the Guyanese sourpusses to use back alley mugging tactics to attempt to cast aspersion on the integrity of the court should be called out on every turn. They chanted, investigate!, investigate!, investigate!
Investigate panel fixing, investigate attempts to influence other judges’ opinions. Investigate all past cases of the CCJ presided over by Justice Anderson. I dare say that the only aspect of this debacle worth investigating is exactly how the leak happened together with appropriate punishment for the culprit.
I believe the response by President Justice Anderson was compact, concise and should put to rest the fake avaricious and enterprising clamour for investigation.
From a non-lawyer’s perspective, those with legal certification, letters and eminent legal resume ought to have known better. I believe that they do know better, but they contrived to pander to narrow political meanderings in favour of sound legal tradition. While the allegations raised in the emails may not be baseless in reference to the internal cohesiveness, management process and camaraderie of judicial office holders, it is certainly wholly without merit to raise it to the level of a major investigation into the operation and judicial practices of the court.
Take the allegation of panel fixing. For this to be successful, the logic is that the President, to whom this task falls, must have foreknowledge of the individual judges’ thoughts on the case, even before it is heard. To do this, he must canvass the views of each judge and based on their leanings, he then determines who sits on that particular panel. This is midnight fairytale, “once upon a time in a land far far away.” Which self-respecting law student preparing for a mock trial will allow this sort of canvassing and fixing? Muchness eminently qualified jurists on the bench of multi-territorial apex court. The other major contention that there was an attempt to influence the views of judges is intertwined with the first. Are judges susceptible to be ambushed in the corridor and coerced to deliver a particular opinion?
The very email blew this contention out of the water as individual judge after judge were firm that they are independent, impartial, have strong opinions and that they take their oath of office seriously and will never allow themselves to be improperly influenced. As it turned out, the allegations really referred to one judge finding it annoying and off putting that Justice Anderson, in panel, during discussions, tend to use his status as chair to speak above others and may even come over as a dogmatist. On the question of dictatorial management style, the CCJ president explained that it was issue based, having to do with enforcing the sticking to a particular judicial dress code based on rules already on the books unless and until it is changed following full discussion.
All these allegations are kinks to be worked out among colleagues via the internal management mechanisms and cannot reasonably be expected to raise to the level of questioning the integrity of the court as some megaphone touting personalities sought to convey; but I am not surprised, this has been the calling card of the opposition and the political ethos of their most dazzling proponents. Long live the CCJ.