By Prior Beharry
FORMER Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar was “forced out” after being appointed a High Court judge in 2017.
This was the decision of the Court of Appeal on Thursday when it stated that Justice David Harris got it wrong when he ruled in October 2021 that Ayers-Caesar was neither “forced” nor “pressured” into resigning from the position by the Chief Justice Ivor Archie as she claimed.
She had sued the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) headed by Chief Justice Ivor Archie which she said forced her out of office as a High Court judge in 2017.
The decision was handed down in a unanimously decision by the Appeal Court comprising Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Alice Yorke-Soo Hon and Nolan Bereaux.
Justice Harris had found that Ayers-Caesar made the decision on her own to submit the resignation letter to then President Anthony Carmona with the intention of returning to the Magistracy to complete 52 part-heard preliminary enquiries she had left behind upon her elevation to the High Court.
The Appeal Court stated that the decision of the JLSC was ultra vires, null and void and amounted to illegal conduct because the commission sought to threaten and pressure her into resigning contrary to its powers under section 137 of the Constitution.
The court said that Ayers-Caesar continued to hold the position of Puisne judge of the High Court and ordered that she be compensated (to be assessed by the High Court) for breaches to her Constitutional rights t.
In delivering the judgement, Justice Mendonca, directed that the purported resignation letter by Ayers-Caesar in April 2017, be expunged from the president’s records.
The panel also agreed to grant a stay of 21 days of their order to give the JLSC time to consider whether it wanted to further appeal the matter to the London-based Privy Council.
The was public outcry over the 52 incomplete part-heard matters she had left behind when she was appointed to the High Court.
Some of those matters had to start afresh, while many of the accused had theirs almost completed at the magistrates’ court with some spending a significant number of time in jail.
Ayers-Caesar was represented by Ramesh Lawrence-Maharaj, SC, and Ronnie Bissessar, SC, while Russell Martineau, SC, Deborah Peake, SC, Ian Benjamin, SC, and Ian Roach appeared for the JLSC.
