WAS the High Court judge who dismissed former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar’s legal challenge of her short-lived judicial appointment in 2017, wrong to do so? She is of the opinion that he was.

On October 8, Justice David Harris dismissed Ayers-Caesar’s judicial review claim, in which she alleged Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) pressured her to resign as a judge.

She claims this happened after it was disclosed she had left 52 preliminary inquiries in the magistrates court unfinished when she took up an appointment as a judge.

Ayers-Caesar was appointed a judge on April 12, 2017, but resigned 15 days later.

Harris held that she was treated fairly by the Chief Justice, the JLSC – of which he is chairman – and former president Anthony Carmona.

Ayers-Caesar appealed Harris’s decisions except those that concerned Carmona.

On Tuesday, the Appeal Court’s most senior judges, Allan Mendonca – currently acting as Chief Justice; Justice Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, and Nolan Bereaux – heard submissions from both Ayers-Caesar and the JLSC.

They have reserved their decision on the appeal.

Leading the team for the former chief magistrate is former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, while the JLSC’s team is led by another former AG, Russell Martineau, SC.

In his opening address, Maharaj said Harris made grave errors in the law and facts in his approach and findings.

He said the judge should have held there was undue pressure on Ayers-Caesar to resign and to find that the JLSC was vicariously liable because of what the Chief Justice had told her.

IMPORTANT

LEGAL ISSUES

Maharaj said the appeal raised important issues of constitutional and public law principles, particularly as it relates to the independence of the Judiciary and the constitutional guarantee of security of tenure of judges of the Supreme Court.

He maintained a judge cannot be suspended or have their appointment terminated outside of a section 137 process. Maharaj maintained Harris failed to do the fact-finding exercise all judges are required to do when coming to a decision on disputed facts.

He went through much of the evidence advanced at the trial before Harris to support his arguments.

He said undue pressure was put on the former chief magistrate to tender her resignation.

“Our submission is that his findings cannot stand,” he said. He said the fact that she had unfinished cases was not grounds for her removal.

He told the judges even if they found that Archie did not threaten her, they should still find that the JLSC did put unfair pressure on her. Ayers-Caesar had alleged she was threatened that if she did not agree to resign as a judge, the JLSC would recommend to Carmona to revoke her judicial appointment.

JLSC NOT INVOLVED

In his submissions, Martineau denied the JLSC had anything to do with Ayers-Caesar’s decision to tender her