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Falling standards plague Supreme Court

May 19, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am a former clerk of the Supreme Court and I worked with the Registrar as well as with Mr. Mohamed, who was a legal clerk and I believe, is the Judicial Officer. Since the Registrar of the Supreme Court Sita Ramlal, has been sent on administrative leave and/or interdicted from performing duties, the question which is being asked is – who will be performing the duties of Registrar?
The Judicial Service Commission never saw it fit to appoint a qualified lawyer to be Deputy Registrar. This is an omission by that Commission.

The person who is directly under Ms. Ramlal is Mr. Mohamed. But Mr. Mohamed is not an Attorney-at-Law. It is not known whether he is the Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court, although he has signed notices in the newspapers in 2008 and recently for a Full Court sitting for the late Chancellor George. But this is doubtful since the post of Deputy Registrar ought to be held by an Attorney-at-Law with some years of experience in the practice of civil law, and Mr. Mohamed is not a qualified lawyer.

If Mr. Mohamed is not qualified to be Deputy Registrar then it would be not only most inappropriate but, indeed, also most unfair to Mr. Mohamed himself, to be called upon to perform the functions of Registrar of the Supreme Court. Mr. Mohamed may be competent in some aspects of the work of the Registry, but is he competent is those several areas which call for legal knowledge and professional experience?
To put it bluntly, one cannot diminish the importance of the functions of Registrar of the Supreme Court to the extent that a person who is not qualified to be the Deputy Registrar is put to perform the duties of Registrar.

The Judicial Service Commission should move quickly to ensure that a qualified Attorney-at-Law is appointed to perform the duties of Registrar. If a qualified Attorney-at-Law were in the post of Deputy Registrar, a crisis situation would not have now arisen. But a crisis is at hand, created by the neglect or omission of the Judicial Service Commission.
There are complaints about falling standards. Sometimes falling standards result simply because those responsible for upholding standards simply allow them to fall below what is prescribed. This is a good e xample.
Yonette Flemming

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