Ayers-Caesar’s claim sealed

The judicial review application filed Wednesday in the Civil Registry by attorney Vijaya Maharaj who appears with Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, has been given the case number, CV 2017-02628, and has been assigned to Justice David Harris. However, counter clerks at the Civil Registry at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain said the matter was not in ‘the system’, as there was no record of it.

Newsday understands that the judicial review application, as well as attached documents namely three affidavits sworn by Ayers-Caesar, her husband and Magistrate Cheron Raphael, were sealed, but efforts to ascertain on whose instructions, were futile.

Sources indicated that attorneys for Ayers-Caesar and the JLSC were meeting frequently to discuss a possible settlement and it could be for that reason that the application was sealed so as not to compromise that process.

Ayers-Caesar was selected as a judge and sworn in at President’s House on April 12. On April 27, she resigned from the High Court and the Judiciary indicated she would be restored to the Magistracy to complete part heard cases left unfinished on her magisterial docket.

This later changed after it was revealed she was not forthcoming on the actual number of part heard cases left and Ayers-Caesar was accused of misleading the Chief Justice and JLSC.

In a letter to President Anthony Carmona in June, Ayers-Caesar placed on record the circumstances under which she was made to tender her resignation. She insisted that her resignation was in effect her dismissal by the JLSC. She also noted that she was never given an opportunity to answer the charge made against her publicly, which she has disputed. Ayers-Caesar also said she was of the belief that the termination of her appointment as a High Court judge was unlawful. No date has been set for the first hearing of the application.