CJ will administer, not judge

On July 10, 2006 the Chief Justice sought and was granted leave by the Honourable Madam Justice Jones to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions to institute criminal proceedings against the Chief Justice. That decision was stayed by the Court. The Deputy DPP on an application to set aside the leave granted by the Court stated that the decision to institute criminal proceedings had in fact been made by Assistant Commissioner of Police Wellington Virgil and that the Deputy DPP had merely advised ACP Virgil during the course of his investigations. Accordingly, the Chief Justice sought leave to amend his application for judicial review, to include a challenge to what was now stated to be the decision of ACP Virgil and applied for a stay of this decision of ACP Virgil. The Court granted leave to the Chief Justice to challenge this decision and a stay was subsequently granted. Furthermore, the Court dismissed the Deputy DPP’s application to set aside leave. As a consequence, there were existing orders of the High Court, which stayed the decisions of both the Deputy DPP and ACP Virgil. The obvious intent of which was to prohibit the instituting of criminal proceedings against the Chief Justice, until the substantive application for judicial review had been heard and determined.

Notwithstanding the said orders, on July 14, 2006 criminal proceedings were instituted against the Chief Justice. The genesis of the criminal proceedings being the decision of the Commissioner of Police that a charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice should be laid against the Chief Justice. This charge was laid by way of an information sworn by Acting Inspector Romany, the deputy investigator of ACP Virgil, the lead investigator in the matter. A warrant of arrest was then obtained by Acting Inspector Romany, on the instruction of the Commissioner of Police who had decided on this course rather than employing the usual process of causing a summons to be issued for the Chief Justice to attend before the Magistrate’s Court. An attempt was made on the evening of Friday July 14, 2006 to execute the warrant of arrest on the Chief Justice at his home in full glare of the media. Since those events an injunction has been granted by the Court, which prevents the arrest of the Chief Justice.

The question of whether criminal proceedings could lawfully be instituted against the Chief Justice on the particular facts of the case being litigated in the court is an issue to be determined by the Court. The Court must also determine the legality of criminal proceedings instituted after the Court had granted the stays mentioned above.

The Chief Justice is certainly not asserting that he is above the criminal law or that he is immune to the court’s processes but rather that in the particular facts of this case there has been an abuse of power and an abuse of process by the Executive branch of government for the sole purpose of effecting his removal from office. It is these abuses that render the criminal proceedings unlawful. Nevertheless, the fact remains that by reason of the acts referred to above, which are the subject of challenge before the Court, there exists a criminal charge against the Chief Justice.

The Chief Justice is mindful of the importance of the independence of the Judiciary and the critical need for its insulation from the Executive branch of the government. In fact, the Chief Justice is by his action before the Court, an action to which every citizen is entitled, seeking also to protect and to ensure the independence of the judiciary over which he presides.

The Chief Justice though is equally mindful of the critical importance of public confidence in the administration of justice and recognises that the mere existence of a criminal charge against him will serve to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice, should he continue to hear an adjudicate on any proceedings in the courts over which he presides until resolution of the matter now before the Court, this debate his assertion as to its unlawfulness as a result of an abuse of power and an assault on his independent office.

It is for this reason and in recognition of the principles which underpin the administration of justice that the Chief Justice has decided that he will not execute any of his judicial functions as Chief Justice until resolution of this matter and will limit his functions to those that are strictly administrative in nature.

In this latter regard it is important that the public understands that existing administrative functions of the Chief Justice do not now include the rostering of judges of the High Court and the Court of Appeal, a function the Chief Justice had delegated some time ago.