Judge’s ruling sound

The Judicial Review Bill was introduced by the PNM administration earlier this year in an attempt to prevent citizens from challenging Government decisions on matters in which the citizens have no vested interest. The amendment had to do with repealing the provision in the existing Act "where the relief sought would be in the public interest". Under this proposed legislation, an individual could turn to the court only if they were directly affected by a decision taken by the Government. In other words, individuals would have been effectively banned under this legislation from taking legal action for the good of the society.

When introducing this amendment, Attorney General John Jeremie offered the weak justification that the courts were clogged with such motions. Even if this is so — and Mr Jeremie offered no evidence to support his claim — it should obviously have been up to the Chief Justice to decide how best to unclog the courts. The Government’s proper role can only have been to facilitate the CJ’s strategy. In any case, what Mr Jeremie did not say was that such motions are, by their very nature, embarrassing to the Government — especially a Government intent on building sports complexes and industrial plants which may be breaking several laws.

Justice Gobin offered several grounds for her judgment. The first was that the Bill was unconstitutional because it contravened Section 5 (2), which limits the authority of Parliament to alter certain rights and laws. She argued that the expressed aim of the Bill was to remove a part of the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts and that this was unlawful. The Bill, wrote Justice Gobin, "raised the issue of the legality of a policy of the government which, if carried out, was capable of undermining the rule of law and the separation of powers."

This latter comment carries the legal judgment into the political arena — a necessary task given the kind of legislation under dispute. Indeed, Justice Gobin went further and stated that "the role of the bona fide public interest litigant in a relatively young democracy as ours is critical to the maintenance of the rule of law". As a political statement, this is irrefutable, since every society in which the State has untrammelled power has resulted in oppression of the people. Justice Gobin also ordered that the Attorney General pay costs to the senior and junior counsel of the Civil Rights Association, which brought the action, thus sending a strong message to the Government about its attempt to intervene on the court’s powers.

The Government now has three options. It can appeal Justice Gobin’s judgment; it can bring back the Judicial Review (Amendment) Bill in the same or altered form; or it can drop the whole matter. In our view, the last choice would be best, since the PNM and the country have more to lose than to gain by pursuing this legislation. But, as the Manning administration has repeatedly shown, our view and that of ordinary citizens is often not that of Government’s.