Sacked magistrates cry foul

Feb 22, 2015 News

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…Sohan claims he was tipped to be Chief
Attorneys-at-Law Geeta Chandan-Edmond and Chandra Sohan are both claiming that the move by the Judicial Service Commission to remove them from the bench is unjust.  There was no proper basis for such a decision.

The attorneys are currently meeting with their lawyers to fight back against the five-member JSC. They intend to go as far as the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Yesterday, former Senior Magistrate Sohan said that he learnt of his dismissal through media reports since he had not received a dismissal letter from the commission.
Sohan said, however, that he was in no way surprised by the JSC decision. He was taken aback by the way the decision developed.  Sohan, who was the longest serving magistrate on the bench, was tipped to replace the Chief Magistrate who is expected to be elevated to a judge soon.
“I know the objective was to get rid of me because I am in the way of some people who had been promised a chance to advance in the system,” he said.
On Wednesday, last, Sohan along with his lawyer, Senior Counsel Bernard De Santos, appeared before the commission at the behest of the latter. Sohan had to appear before the Commission for a number of misdemeanors but he said he was not prepared for an inquiry for several reasons, including that the time for such a hearing had legally expired.
The Attorney-at-Law explained that according to the rules set out by the JSC, if no inquiry is held within 60 days of a Magistrate’s suspension, then he can return to work. The JSC Rule 80, sub rule six, specifies that in such an event the suspension is deemed to have been set aside; the effect being as if the suspension had never taken place.

Sohan held that this rule was blatantly disregarded in his case.
Sohan said that he had initially moved to the High Court to have the decision to suspend him quashed but Justice Naresh Harnanan refused, leaving him to file an appeal and subsequently a motion to have the matter expedited.
When he appeared before the JSC on Wednesday, he was told that the rule cannot apply at the time and the inquiry will go forward. He said that neither he nor his lawyer was prepared to face an inquiry.
He said that the Senior Counsel requested an adjournment to prepare but it was shot down by the five-member commission.
Initially, the senior Magistrate was suspended following a very brief hearing into complaints brought against him, relating to his work. “I was not prepared to participate in an inquiry. I was not heard in the beginning and I was not even heard on Wednesday yet I am learning that I was fired.”
It was previously reported that Sohan was charged with dangerous driving and fined but had allegedly modified his records on occasions, causing it to reflect that he was reprimanded and discharged.
Sohan denied the allegations. “I have never been charged with a criminal offence and then caused the record to be changed. Never.”
The Commission had also looked into a complaint, in relation to a court matter involving domestic violence. The matter was heard some time last year at the Vreed- en- Hoop Magistrate’s Court, when Sohan was presiding there, albeit briefly.
There are allegations that Sohan appeared to be biased towards the woman’s husband during the time he was dealing with the matter. However, Sohan said he is known to the couple and merely gave advice for an amicable settlement of the matter before it was dragged through the court.
In fact, the matter was assigned to another Magistrate and the woman had been insisting on several occasions that she did not wish to pursue the matter in the court. Surprisingly, a report was made to the JSC about the magistrate’s conduct in the matter. Later, reports surfaced that the woman did not file a complaint in the matter.
It was also reported that Sohan was being disciplined for discrepancies that were unearthed between fines recorded by him on Court case jackets and those recorded on corresponding police case jackets in Court 7 (Traffic Court), where he presided.
Sohan argued that neither he nor the Prosecutor had ever been questioned about the alleged inconsistencies.
The Attorney claimed that it was the Chairman of the Commission himself who brought complaints against him yet “sat there as the Chair and Prosecutor”. Sohan claimed that any inquiry on that ground would have been compromised.
Former Magistrate Chandan-Edmond said that she was shocked at the decision to sack her.
She explained that she was summoned before the JSC in relation to several allegations. The allegations, she said, were all shot down by her and her attorney, Nigel Hughes, yet she received a letter of dismissal two days later from the JSC. The decision is one she found unjust and to that effect she intends to pursue every legal course of action available.
She stressed that at no point over her nine and a half years on the bench had any allegation of misconduct or corrupt practices was leveled against her. Like Sohan, what Chandan finds troubling is that the complainant and the adjudicator in the entire proceedings was the Judicial Service Commission.
In fact, the allegations against her were being looked at during the life of the previous JSC, but Chandan said there was no hearing or any invitation to any hearing on the allegations in 2014, the year that the JSC was commissioned.
Shortly after receiving the dismissal letter, Hughes, by way of public statement, had said that there was no rule which required the Magistrate to notify the Chancellor and or seek his permission prior to her departure from the Country. The Commission conceded that there was no such rule in existence either in the Judicial Service Commission Rules or the Public Service Rules.
The JSC had also leveled allegations over missing notes but that allegation according to her was also shot down by her attorney who provided evidence to the contrary. She was on maternity leave during the time the notes went missing.
“Every single allegation leveled against the Magistrate was answered and refuted with the production of documentary evidence including a letter from the doctor who examined Ms Chandan-Edmond,” Hughes noted.
The lawyer explained that the Prime Minister’s son, Samuel Hinds Junior was charged before the Magistrate on a serious criminal offence of unlawful wounding and was found guilty. He was set to be sentenced the day Chandan-Edmond received the marching orders.
Hughes claimed that the immediate effect of the termination of the Magistrate’s service is that the verdict against Hinds is vacated and a new trial before a different Magistrate will now follow. It was explained that by law, a man cannot be found guilty twice of an offence.
The Judicial Service Commission says not so; that another Magistrate can hand down the sentence. The commission said that there were precedents.
There are reports in the media that the Magistrate was also being looked at because her husband, also an attorney, had been appearing before her as a lawyer in some courts. There were no allegations of that nature leveled against her by the JSC.
Responding to the allegations, her husband, Attorney-at-Law Joel Edmond said that at no point had he ever appeared before his wife in court matters. He said that he intends to challenge any allegation by the Chairman or any member of the Commission.

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