Norton snubs President Ali’s request to confirm substantive Chancellor, Chief Justice

Nov 01, 2025 News

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(Kaieteur News) – Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and outgoing opposition leader, Aubrey Norton said he was not prepared to support the request by President Irfaan Ali to appoint Justices Roxane George-Wiltshire and Navindra Singh as the substantive Chancellor of the Judiciary and Chief Justice, respectively.

In fact, the party leader relayed that he also could not support the removal of Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards from her post of substantive acting Chancellor of the Judiciary.

“I can say this to you, from the inception with my engagements with President Irfaan Ali, I made it very, very clear, as pellucid as I can, that I was not prepared to support the removal of Justice Cummings, made that very clear. You’re already aware that I am on record as saying I gave consent for the appointment of Justice Cummings and Justice Wiltshire a while back,” he said at his party’s press conference Friday.

The president announced last week that Justice Cummings-Edwards, who recently returned from a two-month vacation, had written to him to proceed on early retirement. Following that announcement, the president also announced that he had written to the outgoing opposition leader, requesting his support for the substantive appointment of Justices George-Wiltshire and Singh.

Norton told reporters that he has not responded to the letter by the president because he, “wasn’t prepared to confirm with them, and I didn’t write because I didn’t want the letter to be used as some form of consultation. Even on the first occasion when he wrote me on the issue, I did not respond, and I did not respond to this one because I know of the tendency of using anything you would have written as if you were meaningfully consulted.”

He reminded that there was a court case on the matter of meaningful consultation and the acting chief justice at the time, George-Wiltshire had ruled that there was consultation. Therefore, “since then I have never ever become involved in that except, I’m clear, we’re satisfied, and this is what we’re doing then I will write, but I didn’t respond.”

Reminding that government did not pursue it, he added that when the issue was raised with him, he maintained that he needed to hear from Justice Cummings herself. However, he was unable to hear from her.

“That for me was enough to suggest that I shouldn’t get involved in appointing a permanent chancellor and chief justice. However, in discussions, I asked the question, let’s assume that she was legitimately out, which I didn’t believe. I said, well, I didn’t ask the question; I made the point that I was not prepared to make Justice Singh Chief Justice and confirm it. I was not prepared to do that,” Norton firmly stated.

During a live broadcast on October 24, President Ali said that Justice Cummings-Edwards had requested to proceed on pre-retirement leave beginning Monday, October 27, 2025. He said Justices George-Wiltshire and Navindra Singh will continue to perform the duties of acting Chancellor of the Judiciary and acting Chief Justice, respectively.

The president also disclosed via a Facebook post that he administered the oath of office to Justice Singh as a member of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) at State House. Justice Singh will serve a three-year term on the commission, which was reconstituted in July 2023 after a six-year hiatus.

Back in 2022, Norton informed President Ali that he agreed to the confirmation of Justice Cummings-Edwards and Justice George as Chancellor and Chief Justice, respectively.

Kaieteur News reported then that Norton through the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) member and attorney 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 Yonette Cummings-Edwards be appointed chancellor of the judiciary and Justice Roxane 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 that since the opposition leader has already fulfilled his constitutional responsibility, the president is now charged with making the appointment.

However, no action was taken by the president.

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• Chancellor, Chief Justice, Justices Roxane George-Wiltshire, Navindra Singh, Norton, PNCR

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