Justice Volney

Perhaps Justice Hubert Volney would be better off if his skin weren’t as thick as he says. Sitting in the High Court on Tuesday, Judge Volney described himself as “a popular bobolee. But with skin as thick as an alligator.” But has the learned judge asked himself why he has become, in his view, a bobolee? If he indeed fits that role, then its genesis surely stretches back seven years to the infamous Brad Boyce case. This was a matter sure to garner wide public attention, simply because the accused was a young white Trinidadian from a well-off family who had been accused of killing another young man in a fracas outside a nightclub. So the public was, naturally, keen to see how justice would play itself out.

Thanks to Judge Volney, however, there never was a trial by jury. Instead, he decided during the preliminary inquiry that pathologist Hughvon des Vignes was not competent to give expert opinion on the cause of death and, on that basis, dismissed the charges against Boyce on July 27, 1998. And that would have been the end of the matter, at least legally, save for a new law which allowed the State to appeal judges’ decisions. When the matter finally reached the Privy Council this year, Judge Volney’s decision was overturned. But Boyce did not have to go on trial again, since the Law Lords ruled that he had a reasonable expectation that he was a free man and because the length of time that had elapsed would make a conviction unlikely.

Hardly had tongues stopped wagging about that reversal when the trial for the murder of Chandra Naraynsingh was ended with similar abruptness. Another high-profile case, this one was not stopped by Judge Volney but by the jury after being advised by him that they could do so if they felt the prosecution’s case was weak. So said, so done. But, although Judge Volney was within his rights to so advise the jury, there is some question as to whether this is good practice. And then, with attention focused on Judge Volney, a drug-trafficking case involving a Dutch national came up for hearing, but the accused had skipped the country. It turned out that, after being initially charged, her bail had been set at $1.2 million. She later applied for a reduction, and this was granted, with her bail being reduced by nearly half. And since the judge in that case was also Volney, background checks revealed that he had made similar decisions to reduce bail in two other matters involving drug trafficking cases, with those individuals also vanishing.

So if Justice Volney is now a bobolee, he knows why. And he must also know what opinion a significant section of the public has of him. In such a situation, is it enough for Judge Volney to take pride in his alligator hide, or should he, directly or otherwise, clarify his legal reasoning in all these cases that have become controversial in the public mind? This is not a happy development for the nation, especially at a time when crime is the primary concern of all citizens. We can only hope that Judge Volney’s bobolee status will not infect other judges.