Attorney General unapologetic about comments on judiciary
On Tuesday, the judges of the Supreme Court issued a statement, it was one of a kind, prompted by a proposal that has now been deferred by the Bar Association that could have potentially ended in the removal of one sitting Judge. The reason for that proposal: a delay in the delivery of judgements. While the statement in itself was big news, it was a scathing piece on what the judges believe is an attack on the judiciary, which it claimed, serves to undermine public confidence in the system. For one, it referred directly to “open season” when no less than the Attorney General launched a wholesale attack on the Judiciary and charged it with dispensing only injustice. This, the Judiciary viewed as ruffling feathers. Today News Five travelled to Belmopan for a one on one with the Attorney General himself. Wilfred Elrington was not ruffled, in fact he was blunt and unapologetic. The interview was lengthy and most of it is unedited. Here is how that went:
Wilfred Elrington, Attorney General
“I don’t think that there’s ever been a time in the history of this country when we’ve had so many judges. We have nine judges in the Supreme Court. I do not think that anybody can point to another jurisdiction with a population that’s as small as ours that has nine Supreme Court judges. I’m sure we exceed the number considerably; nine judges for three hundred and fifty thousand people is a lot, so I don’t agree with the view that we have too few judges. My view has always been that, for political reasons, we have not been getting the best judges. Even before this case came to the fore, with respect to one particular judge, the entire Bar sent to notify the Judicial and Legal Services Commission that we do not think he was a proper candidate for the job of a judge.”
“I was told that notwithstanding representation of the Bar Association, the person was appointed because the powers that be wanted him to be appointed and I was very disappointed to hear that. I myself had publicly called in to suggest that that person be not appointed. Now I’m told, based on his performance in the court, that in fact it’s a disaster. So that is the kind of problem we have. We have a problem where people who we appoint to the bench are not functioning efficiently. It’s just a question of competence, and because of that you have long delays in the delivery of judgement because these people just find it difficult in fact to deal with the issues that are raised.”
“A judge of the supreme court is a person who needs to spend most of his or her time on the bench and when you’re not on the bench you’ve got to be prepared to spend time working at home. The life of a judge is a very cloistered one because he hears cases in the day and in the night he goes home and he writes his judgements. I had no problems making decisions as a judge. But I went home at four, I would relax until six and then I started to work again until ten, eleven in the night. I don’t think the matters in our courts are so complex that it should take three, four, five months; now and again. If you’re a very competent judge, you should be able to give your judgement in a matter of a day or two or three.”
“We also have this practice where judges come in court and would read a judgement that would take them two hours to read. They don’t summarise it, they read the whole judgement. I received a letter from the Bar Association asking me to invite judges to resign who have long outstanding judgements. I wrote back to tell them that I don’t think I had that authority.”
Elrington took head on what the justices viewed as the ruffling of feathers and a call to undermine the judiciary.
Wilfred Elrington
“I have no difficulty ruffling feathers. If feathers need to be ruffled, I have no difficulty ruffling them. I had said quite clearly in that address that I gave at the Supreme Court that really and truly it was a statement made by the judge of the Court of Appeal. I had a meeting with them and they said Mr. Elrington, your magistrates are dispensing injustice not justice. One of them said that to me and I repeated that. That was said to me and I repeated that. But you are on the street, you know that when people have problem they don’t want to go to court man. They will tell you plain I will handle it myself. They don’t waste time in court. You haven’t heard me on the radio or anywhere disparaging the court or seeking to undermine the court the public is doing that.”
“People go up to the court that everybody believes is guilty. Everybody believes these people are guilty and then they walk down one after the other acquitted for one reason or the other for no seeming reason. Is that the kind of thing that is likely to instil confidence in a society?”
Marion Ali
“Wouldn’t it be an issue of evidence though; lack of evidence?”
Wilfred Elrington
“Whatever it is but those are the things that erode the confidence of the people. There are some people who believe that there’s evidence there. The judges decide otherwise. Is it wrong for me to say that in fact this is what the society is saying? I don’t think that I am wrong.”
Marion Ali
“The Chief Justice, in his opening remarks at the opening ceremony, mentioned the shortage of resources as being one of the problems that they face on a daily basis. What’s your take on that?”
Wilfred Elrington
“I perhaps am the only Minister who did not ask for a new vehicle and I am responsible for three ministries. And you know why I didn’t ask for a new vehicle? Because I know that the country is short on resources. We have got to make do with what we have. I can tell you that all the resources that the Supreme Court needs is their. Everything that they need to function is there. They get the salaries regularly, they have their supporting staff; they have everything. They have access to the research materials. Everything that a third world country has is available to them. No, we don’t have money for judges to go all over the world, go to south Africa to give a lecture, go to London to attend a conference, go to Ireland to—we don’t have monies for that. But as the minister, I am not allowed to go either unless it is deemed to be sufficiently important. I don’t ask for the money knowing that we don’t have it. It’s a limited—we are in a very difficult time; we don’t have resources. For the Chief Justice to be carping on the fact that we don’t have resources, he must have taken the job knowing that that was the case.”
