Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan says he was per­son­al­ly shocked by the al­leged po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a mag­is­trate and warned that while the mat­ter could dam­age pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry, the in­sti­tu­tion should re­frain from com­ment­ing un­til in­ves­ti­ga­tors have com­plet­ed their work.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Khan ac­knowl­edged that al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer are rare and said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has the po­ten­tial to cast the Ju­di­cia­ry in a neg­a­tive light.

How­ev­er, he stressed that nei­ther the Ju­di­cia­ry nor mem­bers of the le­gal pro­fes­sion should rush to de­fend the in­sti­tu­tion while the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains on­go­ing.

Asked whether the in­ves­ti­ga­tion rep­re­sent­ed a rep­u­ta­tion­al blow for the Ju­di­cia­ry, Khan replied, “Well, yes, of course. When last you know a mag­is­trate has been charged? Don­key years ago? I don’t know. This nev­er hap­pened in re­cent times.”

The com­ments come af­ter po­lice re­port­ed­ly launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a mag­is­trate over al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. The al­leged in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tres on claims that a mag­is­trate ac­cept­ed bribes in ex­change for favourable ju­di­cial rul­ings. Po­lice are re­port­ed­ly prob­ing fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions, in­clud­ing de­posits in­to bank ac­counts, as part of the cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

De­spite the se­ri­ous­ness of the al­le­ga­tions, Khan said the Ju­di­cia­ry’s best course of ac­tion is to re­main silent un­til in­ves­ti­ga­tors have com­plet­ed their work.

“They can­not do any­thing,” he said. “All they have to do is wait and see. The best thing for the Ju­di­cia­ry is to shut up.”

He main­tained that it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for the in­sti­tu­tion to is­sue any pub­lic de­fence while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains ac­tive.

“They ought not to say any­thing. They can’t.”

Khan stressed that, as with any crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the mag­is­trate is en­ti­tled to the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence un­less proven guilty be­fore the courts.

“But he’s pre­sumed to be in­no­cent un­til found guilty.”

While em­pha­sis­ing that prin­ci­ple, Khan ac­knowl­edged that if the al­le­ga­tions are even­tu­al­ly proven, the con­se­quences for the Ju­di­cia­ry’s rep­u­ta­tion could be sig­nif­i­cant.

“It’ll bring the Ju­di­cia­ry in­to to­tal dis­re­gard,” he said. “Peo­ple may be won­der­ing whether oth­er mag­is­trates are do­ing the same thing. So, it def­i­nite­ly will bring the Ju­di­cia­ry in a bad light.

“So, let’s hope if that in­ves­ti­ga­tion is true and there is ev­i­dence, you will def­i­nite­ly charge the par­tic­u­lar mag­is­trate.”

Khan al­so re­flect­ed on what he be­lieves is a broad­er de­cline in pub­lic con­fi­dence in na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, say­ing many cit­i­zens now ques­tion the in­tegri­ty of the jus­tice sys­tem.

“The man on the street be­lieves if you have mon­ey, you could ma­nip­u­late every­thing,” he said, adding that many mem­bers of the pub­lic have lost con­fi­dence not on­ly in the Ju­di­cia­ry, but al­so in the po­lice and politi­cians.

Tak­lals­ingh: No one is above the law

Mean­while, head of the As­sem­bly of Cen­tral Le­gal Prac­ti­tion­ers Kiel Tak­lals­ingh echoed the call for pa­tience while in­ves­ti­ga­tors car­ry out their work, stress­ing that no con­clu­sions should be drawn be­fore the ev­i­dence is test­ed.

He said ju­di­cial of­fi­cers must be treat­ed no dif­fer­ent­ly from any oth­er cit­i­zen where al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal mis­con­duct arise.

“No one is above the law,” Tak­lals­ingh said. “Ju­di­cial of­fi­cers are held to the same stan­dard as an av­er­age cit­i­zen. That is the essence of equal­i­ty be­fore the law.”

He added that where there are rea­son­able grounds to in­ves­ti­gate a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer, the pub­lic in­ter­est re­quires that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be con­duct­ed thor­ough­ly and with­out de­lay.

Like Khan, Tak­lals­ingh un­der­scored that the mag­is­trate re­mains pre­sumed in­no­cent un­less proven guilty and said both the le­gal pro­fes­sion and the wider pub­lic should al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors to com­plete their work with­out in­ter­fer­ence.

“The le­gal pro­fes­sion and the wider pub­lic must al­low the po­lice to do their work,” he said.

“If there is abuse of pow­er by the po­lice, that will be dealt with at the ap­pro­pri­ate time and there are sev­er­al reme­dies open to a cit­i­zen for re­dress.”

Tak­lals­ingh ac­knowl­edged that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is like­ly to af­fect pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry while it re­mains un­re­solved.

At the same time, he ar­gued that the po­lice have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide mea­sured up­dates to the pub­lic to pre­vent spec­u­la­tion from un­fair­ly taint­ing the wider Ju­di­cia­ry.

“In a case like this, I think there is a civic oblig­a­tion on the po­lice to keep the pub­lic in­formed, to avoid any im­prop­er per­cep­tions be­ing formed against ju­di­cial of­fi­cers.”

PAST IN­VES­TI­GA­TIONS

1987 — Se­nior Mag­is­trate Patrick Jages­sar

Charge: Cor­rup­tion & Con­spir­a­cy

The in­ci­dent: Ac­cused of ac­cept­ing a bribe (a Toy­ota car and cash) from a busi­ness­man to in­flu­ence a court mat­ter.

The out­come: Con­vict­ed in 1988 and sen­tenced to 15 years. The Court of Ap­peal quashed the con­vic­tion in 1995 due to tri­al er­rors.

2006 — Chief Jus­tice Sat­nar­ine Shar­ma

Charge: Per­vert­ing the Course of Jus­tice

The in­ci­dent: Ac­cused of pres­sur­ing then-Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls to ac­quit for­mer PM Bas­deo Pan­day in a cor­rup­tion tri­al.

The out­come: The case col­lapsed on the first day of the 2007 tri­al when Mc Nicolls re­fused to take the wit­ness stand, forc­ing the State to drop all charges.

2009 — Traf­fic Mag­is­trate An­drew Stroude

Charge: Dan­ger­ous & Care­less Dri­ving

The in­ci­dent: Charged fol­low­ing a fa­tal col­li­sion in St James be­tween his SUV and a Venezue­lan de­liv­ery couri­er on a scoot­er.

The out­come: Ini­tial­ly dis­missed, or­dered to a re­tri­al by the Ap­peal Court, and ul­ti­mate­ly dis­missed again in 2013 due to in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

2014 — In­dus­tri­al Court VP Ram­c­hand Lutch­me­di­al

Charge: Re­fus­ing a Breathal­yser Test

The in­ci­dent: The Vice-Pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court (car­ry­ing High Court Judge sta­tus) was stopped by po­lice in Ch­agua­nas and al­leged­ly re­fused to pro­vide a breath sam­ple.

The out­come: Ar­rest­ed, charged un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles Act, and grant­ed own-cog­nizance bail af­ter en­ter­ing a “not guilty” plea.

2018 — High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran

Charge: DUI & Care­less Dri­ving

The in­ci­dent: In­volved in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in Mar­aval. A field so­bri­ety test al­leged­ly record­ed his breath-al­co­hol lev­el at 55 mi­cro­grammes (le­gal lim­it is 35).

The out­come: Ar­rest­ed and grant­ed bail. The State lat­er down­grad­ed the ini­tial dan­ger­ous dri­ving charge to care­less dri­ving; he plead­ed “not guilty.”