Chief Justice Ivor Archie is back in T&T after a trip abroad on personal business and the Law Association of T&T (LATT), which set up a committee to investigate allegations against him, will be writing to him on that matter.
“There is a plan to write to him to respond to the allegations in due course,” LATT president Douglas Mendes said yesterday.
The Council of the LATT received an interim report from the investigating committee last week, but Mendes said it has not yet been sent to the two senior counsel they retained to deal with the matter.
However, the two senior counsel, Eamon Harrison Courtenay, a former AG of Belize, and Francis Alexis, president of the Grenada Bar Association have been supplied with preliminary information
Insisting that the LATT “will not be rushed”, Mendes said: “We will take as much time as is needed to do a proper and fair report.”
He said the report will not be presented at a meeting of the membership scheduled for next Tuesday because it will not be ready by then.
“We do not anticipate having been able to communicate with the CJ by then,” he said.
However, Mendes assured: “We are not standing still and doing nothing. We are trying to do as much as we can.”
Retired Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide, commenting on the matter yesterday, said it would be “unwise for people to be coming to judgment without knowledge of the facts particularly without the benefit of a response from the CJ.”
He told the T&T Guardian: “I certainly would prefer to refrain from commenting on his actions until he gives an account of what he has to say by way of a defence.”
The former CJ said Archie should respond to the allegations made against him.
“I am confident that he will. I think that it would have been better if he had responded earlier but it is not too late,” he said.
He is also hoping the report commissioned by the LATT will be made public as it “would provide a sort of comprehensive statement to what is being alleged because it is not altogether clear whether some of the allegations which have been made by implication are really seriously being advanced.”
One of the allegations that the CJ made recommendations to the HDC for housing for some people—an allegation which Archie has confirmed— de la Bastide said he never made such recommendations when he held the position and described Archie’s actions “an error of judgement.”
He said the question to be answered is whether the error of judgement was “sufficiently grave to justify his removal or resignation.”
PHOTOS LEAKED BY DILLIAN JOHNSON
On Monday, photos taken in a hotel room, of a man with a close resemblance to a high-ranking judicial officer and Dillian Johnson emerged.
Johnson appeared to be the one taking the photo while the other person dressed in a white t-shirt seemed unaware that a photo was being taken. In another photo, Johnson is seen wearing an official ID badge, with the name and designation of a high-ranking judicial officer.
Johnson admitted yesterday to CNC3 news that he leaked the photos because the police were not treating his report of an attempted hit on his life seriously.
Ellen Lewis, Head of Corporate Communications of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, told CNC3 that the allegations made by Johnson are being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Mendes said he had not seen the photos.
Retired Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide said he had not seen the photos either but he said: “There are many instances of people being scandalised by the publication of photographs taken without the knowledge of the person photographed.”
He said it was “an unfortunate development, that we are being treated to these bedroom shots.”
Asked whether there should be a concern about blackmail in the matter, de la Bastide said people in “public office including the judiciary have to be especially careful not to expose themselves” to any attempt at blackmail.
He said while that is “something one has to take into account, I don’t know that there has been any suggestion of any attempt to blackmail him in this case so far.”
The T&T Guardian sent a number of questions to the Judiciary’s Court Protocol Officer Alicia Carter-Fisher seeking a response.