While there is much more that can be said about the extraordinary statement issued yesterday by the President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Justice Winston Anderson on controversies that have arisen in the court, it will suffice for the moment to address his audacious intervention to try to cut the Gordian Knot that has snagged top judicial appointments here for over 20 years.
This matter is also worthy of comment as Justice Anderson remained silent on his intervention for almost a year when his excursion into this arena was material to many matters that could possibly appear before the court and he has only now addressed it following more detailed revelations by the former Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton.
Justice Anderson would have been well aware of the decades-long stalemate here over the absence of agreement between a number of PPP/C Presidents and opposition leaders over the substantive appointments of a Chancellor of the Judiciary and a Chief Justice. He would also have been aware of the public urging by former CCJ Presidents justices Dennis Byron and Adrian Saunders for this matter to be resolved. Yet he took it upon himself in a furtive manner and without a hint of transparency to engage with President Ali and then Opposition Leader Norton.
His attempted mediation from the outset undermined the constitutional requirement for the two leaders to agree. He must have been aware that President Ali had been reluctant to discharge his constitutional duty for regular exchanges with the Opposition Leader – a condition that is even starker in relation to the present holder of the office who the President clearly refuses to recognize.
The danger that Justice Anderson appeared oblivious to was that in attempting to secure agreement for the substantive appointments of a Chancellor of the Judiciary and a Chief Justice he was practically doing the bidding of one of the two men rather than playing honest broker.
From Mr Norton’s account Justice Anderson sought approval of the confirmation of Justices Roxane George and Navindra Singh as Chancellor and Chief Justice respectively. This appeared to have been the wish of President Ali but would have found no favour with the opposition as Mr Norton’s last proposal which had been completely ignored by President Ali was for the confirmation of Justices Yonette Cummings-Edwards and George as Chancellor and Chief Justice respectively. Based on Mr Norton’s account Justice Anderson conveyed that Justice Cummings-Edwards was prepared to accept an arrangement to depart her position.
Mr Norton said he was not convinced and on making further checks was advised that Justice Cummings-Edwards had not acquiesced. He then broke off contact with Justice Anderson out of concern that he had ventured much beyond his mandate. In the aftermath, Justice Cummings-Edwards abruptly left office a day after returning from leave when it appeared that her acting appointment had been revoked though she had not been aware of it. In essence, the formula that Justice Anderson had presented to Mr Norton was in the mould of what President Ali desired and not the result of a genuine engagement between the two leaders as envisaged by the constitution.
In his statement yesterday, Justice Anderson belatedly sought to explain what he had done by referencing how his predecessors had handled this matter.
“Looking back, I recognise that another course would have been much better. It may have been better to have confined myself to public commentary on the constitutional importance of substantive judicial appointments, as did my predecessors”, he stated.
One wonders where the sense of judicial restraint was when he seized upon the moment to become an emissary between the two leaders when the intractability of their differences and the deep political polarization in the country – something he would have been familiar with from his sojourn here – inveighed against it.
In essence, matters that go before the CCJ where the interests of President Ali and the ruling party are at stake could easily lead to calls for recusal of the President of the Court from such deliberations. Such is the thoughtlessness that attended Justice Anderson’s efforts.
While there will no doubt be internal deliberations in the CCJ on the way forward and the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) will have to find a mechanism to address these issues without the spectre of influence from Justice Anderson, it behoves Mr Norton to set out for the Heads of CARICOM, who may eventually have to deliberate on the conduct of Justice Anderson, what transpired. While he has spoken publicly about the matter, his tenure as immediate past Opposition Leader mandates that he puts in writing to CARICOM Leaders and the CARICOM Secretariat his first-hand account of what transpired in the attempted influencing of appointments to the judiciary here. It will then be for CARICOM Heads and the RJLSC to take a decision on the way forward.
Discussion