AFC calls for substantive appointment of Chancellor and Chief Justice

Dec 28, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News- The Alliance for Change (AFC) on Friday called for the substantive appointment of a Chancellor and Chief Justice.

In a statement to the media, the opposition party said it is once again highlighting “a gaping hole in our good governance and democracy tapestry, and that is the continuing absence of substantive appointments of a Chancellor and Chief Justice, and the need to mend it.”

Noting that, “This imperfection has to be taken care of” the AFC said that it appears that the ruling Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) “prefers to make appointments everywhere else than in the judiciary.”

“One wonders whether this refusal has anything to do with the fact that the two acting heads of the judicial branches, are women and of one ethnic group. We hope that this is not the case. Or is it that the PPP wants rank loyalists to be partisan minions, who will repeat and carry out whatever political instructions are given,” the statement from the party said.

Further, the AFC said that it is time that the Hon. Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Hon. Roxane George be appointed as Chancellor and Chief Justice respectively. The women have been acting in their respective posts since 2017.

“This should be the first order of business before imminent appointments to the Court of Appeal are made,” the party said while reminding that Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton has publicly repeated his ‘no objection’ to the appointments.

“So constitutionally, there is nothing preventing the appointments. Constitutionally and legally, the government has no excuse whatsoever for not proceeding with the appointments,” the AFC said.

Kaieteur News reported on June 8, 2022 that Norton had informed President Ali that he agreed to the confirmation of Justice Cummings-Edwards and Justice George as Chancellor and Chief Justice, respectively.

Norton through the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) member and attorney-at-law, Roysdale Forde, presented a letter to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, informing the government of the Opposition’s support for the appointment of the Chancellor and Chief Justice.

In the letter dated June 7, 2022, Forde told the Minister that: “This serves to inform you that the Leader of the Opposition Mr. Aubrey C. Norton is in agreement that Justice Yonnette Cummings-Edwards be appointed Chancellor of the Judiciary and Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire be appointed Chief Justice in keeping with Article 127 (1) of the Constitution which states that ‘The Chancellor and the Chief Justice shall each be appointed by the President, acting after obtaining the agreement of the Leader of the Opposition’.”

To this end, Norton told members of the media recently during his weekly press conference that since the Opposition Leader has already fulfilled his constitutional responsibility, the President is now charged with making the appointment.

“I am saving the President the trouble of having to ask for agreement…what I have done is to remove any barrier whatsoever. I’ve made it clear through the representative in his letter that I am in agreement once it is the appointment of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice. There is no stumbling block left…it is now out there; a formal letter stating that the President can go ahead removing (the need) of him having to engage me to say I am appointing the two. He can just go ahead because the society seems to agree that the two learned women are equipped, they have served, ruled in different directions so I don’t think that they can be accused of being partisan to one political party or the other,” he said.

A few months later in September of the same year the Kaieteur News reported that President n Ali said the time has not come as yet for him to appoint a substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice.

“We are not at the stage of addressing those issues as yet, there is nothing stalling it, and is just that we have not commenced addressing that as yet. I am trying to complete the Judicial Service Commission, these things must be in place almost instantaneously now that we have the clearance,” the President said.

The Constitution mandates consultation and agreement between the President and the Leader of the Opposition on the two top judicial posts.

Meanwhile, the AFC said too that the government seems to be enjoying photo opportunities given the publicity given to the opening of new and refurbished courts “but just below the surface of the paint and varnish, is a judiciary that is struggling to maintain its confidence and efficacy, as the third and independent branch and of government.”

“This is most evident in the stubborn refusal to appoint the extant acting Chancellor and Chief Justice,” the AFC said.

Justice Desiree Bernard was the last confirmed Chief Justice from 1996 t0 2001 and Chancellor from 2001 to 2005.

 

(AFC calls for substantive appointment of Chancellor and Chief Justice)

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• Alliance For Change, Chancellor, Chief Justice, Opposition party, People's Progressive Party, substantive appointment

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