—questions enquiries into private affairs, treatment of administrative officer
Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Judge Peter Jamadar says that he feels “targeted, harassed and bullied” following enquiries into his private affairs and the questioning of his administrative officer during an investigation into leaked judicial correspondence, Trinidad’s Sunday Express reported yesterday.
In a six-page email dated September 4, Jamadar questioned the legal authority for the enquiries and accused the court’s administration of an “abuse of power, administrative overreach”, according to the report.
The correspondence was addressed to CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson, the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC), which Justice Anderson also chairs, fellow judges and court staff. The Express said three court insiders verified the email and its contents.
The latest report follows the disclosure in August of internal correspondence revealing serious disagreements among judges over Anderson’s leadership, judicial panel assignments and the handling of cases. The controversy included concerns about proceedings involving Guyana’s Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed and his father, Nazar Mohamed.
According to the Express, Justice Jamadar alleged that information about his appointments and commitments outside his duties at the CCJ was sought without his knowledge through his assigned administrative officer, Candace Simmons-Peters.
He described the enquiry as “investigative and inquisitorial” and questioned the authority under which Justice Anderson or the court’s registrar, who also serves as secretary of the RJLSC, could obtain such information from her.
Justice Jamadar alleged that the circumstances were intended to “invite and/or coerce” Simmons-Peters into disclosing confidential information about his private affairs unrelated to her work.
He further alleged that on September 1, she was questioned separately by the court’s information systems manager, Ayinde Burgess, and later by Justice Anderson, in connection with an investigation into the disclosure of internal correspondence to the press. Burgess was reportedly appointed by Justice Anderson to oversee that investigation.
The questions allegedly covered Simmons-Peters’ access to Justice Jamadar’s files, documents she had printed for judges’ meetings and material prepared for an RJLSC-facilitated intervention. She was also asked about her communications with Justice Jamadar, whether she had worked on particular days and her arrival and departure times at the court.
Justice Jamadar said Simmons-Peters was required to surrender her court-issued computer to Burgess for examination and subsequently did so.
He also raised concern about questioning relating to Trinidad and Tobago’s Computer Misuse Act. According to his account, Justice Anderson referred to the possibility of a two-year prison sentence and indicated that investigations would continue to establish who had leaked the information.
“In both instances there is, in my opinion, a clear focus on and targeting of me and maybe more indirectly Ms Simmons-Peters, the CCJ’s Administrative Officer assigned to me,” Justice Jamadar wrote, according to the Express.
He questioned whether the enquiries had extended beyond the alleged leak and were being used to gather information about him. In particular, he argued that documents prepared for the RJLSC-facilitated intervention could not logically have been connected to the earlier disclosure of judicial correspondence.
Justice Jamadar asked Justice Anderson and the registrar to identify the legal and institutional authority for their actions, including the relevant treaties, statutes, regulations, policies and practices, applicable Trinidad and Tobago laws and international legal principles.
He also sought clarification on whether the RJLSC knew of, approved or supported the investigative actions, and questioned the appropriateness of the treatment of Simmons-Peters, particularly the references to possible criminal consequences.
The judge linked the enquiries to two other incidents which, taken together, he considered a pattern of targeting.
One concerned a judges’ meeting scheduled for September 4. Justice Jamadar said a prior commitment prevented him from attending in person, but he had offered to participate virtually. He became concerned when Justice Anderson’s position appeared to change from suggesting personal attendance to expecting it.
The other concerned an August judges’ meeting which Justice Jamadar and four colleagues had sought to postpone to allow an RJLSC-facilitated intervention.
According to Justice Jamadar, Justice Anderson subsequently told him that failure to attend could provide an occasion and reason to write to him. Justice Jamadar said another judge, Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, received a similar email, while the other three judges seeking postponement did not. He questioned why the two appeared to have been singled out.
“Certainly, I feel targeted, harassed, and bullied (directly or indirectly) by their occurrence, and their proximity to the wider contexts that are related to the broader and unresolved impasse among the judges and the CCJ President,” the Express quoted him as writing.
Justice Jamadar also questioned whether Justice Anderson should participate in investigations involving judges or court staff when the president was himself closely involved in the underlying dispute. He raised further questions about the privileges and immunities afforded to judges under the agreement establishing the CCJ and its Protocol on Privileges and Immunities.
The Express said it sent questions to Justice Anderson, the court’s communications department and the RJLSC on September 30, requesting responses by October 7. A reminder was sent on October 5, but no response had been received up to its publication deadline.
The newspaper also reported that no outcome of the review into the earlier controversy had been announced by the court or the Commission.
The RJLSC’s proposed review had already attracted questions in Guyana about Justice Anderson’s dual role as the subject of allegations and chairman of the body overseeing their examination.
Kiskadee Watch reported on August 13 that Mohamed’s office called for Justice Anderson to be excluded from selecting investigators, setting the terms of reference, determining the evidence to be examined or influencing the findings.
The office acknowledged that the allegations did not, by themselves, establish that the ruling in the Mohameds’ appeal was wrong, but called for an independent investigation and disclosure of the review’s arrangements.
On July 29, the CCJ dismissed the Mohameds’ challenge to the Authority to Proceed issued in response to the United States’ extradition request and lifted a stay on the proceedings. Justice Anderson subsequently said all seven judges agreed that the appeal should be dismissed, although they differed on aspects of the reasoning.
Justice Anderson rejected allegations of panel manipulation and improper influence in his August response. He acknowledged removing Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji from a panel hearing a preliminary application in the D’Almada matter following a disagreement over courtroom attire but maintained that the decision had nothing to do with the judge’s opinions.
He also acknowledged that he might have handled the dress-code issue too forcefully. The court subsequently changed its panel-assignment arrangements to require all judges to sit in every matter unless formally excused for a legitimate reason, Kiskadee Watch reported.
In his August 14 statement, Justice Anderson also condemned the unauthorised disclosure of confidential judicial correspondence, arguing that it undermined trust in the confidentiality of deliberations and relations among judges.
More recently, in an October 5 message marking the opening of the judicial year, Justice Anderson reaffirmed the court’s independence and said its jurisprudence remained “strong, principled, and respected”. That message did not directly address the internal dispute, Kiskadee Watch reported.
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