Judge 'disturbed' by botched judicial appointment

JADA LOUTOO

A HIGH COURT judge has described as “disturbing” the inaction by the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) to find out what was the status of cases left behind by former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, and put measures in place.

The comment was made by Justice Kevin Ramcharan who, on Friday, delivered his written decision in the legal challenge of one of the men whose case had to be restarted because of the botched elevation of the then chief magistrate to the High Court bench.

In March, Ramcharan gave an oral decision after the trial, and on Friday, in his written decision, held that Charles’ right to protection of the law was breached.

He ordered the State to pay to Charles compensatory and vindicatory damages amounting to a total of $275,000.

Charles’ attorney, Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, filed the claim, stating that his client’s rights to protection of the law had been infringed since he was incarcerated for more than nine years while his first preliminary enquiry for murder was pending before the court.

That enquiry was close to completion when it was ordered that it had to be restarted afresh.

In all, 53 matters had to be restarted as a consequence of Ayers-Caesar’s appointment to the High Court Bench in April 2017.

Charles was eventually freed after Chief Magistrate Busby Earle-Caddle found that the prosecution’s case was weak because it had little or no evidence to implicate him in the murder for which he was charged.

Ramcharan said he was careful not to cast blame on anyone on why the then chief magistrate was allowed to demit office and take up the new position as a judge without “first putting things in place to deal with the part-heard matters before her.”

“However, what I do find disturbing is that whatever was said or not said by the then chief magistrate, there was nothing done by the JLSC to ascertain what was the status of the matters before the chief magistrate, and measures put in place to ensure that no part heard matter would have been negatively affected by the chief magistrate’s demission from office and elevation to the High Court.

“There was nothing preventing the swearing in of the chief magistrate being put off until her part heard matters were completed.

“I find that this was a duty that the JLSC had, and has, when persons are appointed a judge of the high court from positions of judicial office within the ambit of the JLSC (masters, magistrates, registrars),” he said.

It was for this reason, Ramcharan said there appeared to be a breach of Charles’ right to protection of the law since it was the fault of an arm of the State in not ensuring that proper measures were put in place to deal with the part-heard cases.

He did not agree with Charles’ contention that his rights to choose his attorney was restricted. Ramcharan noted that the right to instruct one’s attorney of choice was not an absolute one, and if they are unable to do so they can access legal aid offered by the State or at the Hugh Wooding Law School.

However, he said, “It is my view that in general the right to a legal representative of one’s choice means that nothing must be done by the State to impair an accused’s ability to consult his legal representative without delay, either by keeping an accused in ignorance of such a right, or restricting whom the accused may contact.”

He said it was not Charles’ fault he had to pay his defence attorney Wayne Sturge additional fees for the second inquiry. He also said an attorney was entitled to charge for reasonable work done in a case and in a rehearing of a preliminary inquiry, Sturge would have had to put in a similar amount of work preparing for it. He also said the view that Sturge’s fee for the second inquiry was “unreasonable to the extreme” was unfortunate.

However, he said while Charles may have been restricted from paying his attorney a second time, he was not prevented from hiring his attorney of choice.