CAYMAN ISLANDS – Caribbean judges and at least one Attorney-General in the Cayman Islands appear to have a job for life without oversight, annual review or approval from lawyers, like America. In the case of the former, it may have helped to draft that island’s most recent Constitution. Age, retirement plans and succession planning are state secrets as many able and home grown wander the wilderness of the status quo.
Commonwealth benchmark case
In the case of judges, there appears to be no basis of appeal court performance that could cause removal or demotion, however recent events in Trinidad may bring a change to that paradigm. That aforementioned Attorney-General participated in the Commonwealth benchmark case on prosecutorial excess of Randall in the Privy Council without subsequent review or sanction.
There may be a new and worse case from the Hadeed tragicomedy in Trinidad recently, that is about to supersede it.
Unlike nearly every private sector or government job, judges are free from peer review, appeal court non performance or court room behaviour. That behaviour has included that of the Chief Justice of Jamaica and has seen at least one murder conviction overturned. He is not alone in that misconduct or failed interpretation of trite law, with likewise results by a former prosecutor, now judge, in the Cayman Islands. There have been some exceptions, some unexpected.
The profusion of former prosecutors in the judiciary may be the cause, the lack of suspension or fine may be the remedy. Wasted costs of a failed trial on appeal would be a good start.
Caribbean bodies of judicial oversight or appointment need not wait for a complaint from lawyers and the potential prejudice that may follow, but can review past judicial conduct of their own accord before appointments are made or regular review of judges before being allowed to continue sitting on the bench.
In the Cayman Islands, an imported English judge was quietly dismissed after a police search of his chambers for allowing a lawyer in a complicated case before him to draft the judgment. He went on to a more appropriate occupation, driving a taxi in Spain. The question is who brought that particular poisoned chalice to judgment seat.
It may be time for some to go on to their true destiny behind the wheel of people carriers or other gig work, the stiff lifeline of many.
The sitting Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands faced no review or disciplinary action for giving a young man twelve years in prison for non existent evidence in a drug case as a magistrate before going on to promotion for her present position.
One rule for them, another rule for those in the glass houses.
