After close to two years, the way has been paved for the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to be reconstituted after the Parliamentary Committee on Appointments on Wednesday finally agreed to a nominee.
Stabroek News has been reliably informed that the nominee is a former Appellate Judge.
Chairman of the Committee Dr. George Norton told Stabroek News that the decision was made at a committee meeting from which members of the opposition were absent, despite being given notice.
For some time there has not been a quorum for the meeting.
However, Norton said that most of the government members turned up on Wednesday, paving the way for the meeting to take place.
Apart from Norton, the Committee comprises government ministers Amna Ally, David Patterson, Catherine Hughes and Annette Ferguson, and opposition members Gail Teixeira, Juan Edghill, Ganga Persaud and Sheila Veersammy.
Norton said during the meeting, the members of the committee considered the nominee submitted by the Guyana Bar Association. “There was only one name we had and we agreed to that name,” he said, before adding that the nominee will be included in a report which will be presented to the National Assembly at its next sitting.
Asked if the opposition members were aware of the meeting, he responded “they are always informed about our meetings [but] they have stopped coming to our meetings.”
He added that the absence of the opposition members has also affected the completion of the committee’s work to identify nominees for the Indigenous People’s Commission.
According to the Constitution, the JSC is to comprise the Chancellor, who is the Chairman, the Chief Justice, the Chairman of the Public Service Commission and such other members appointed in accordance with provisions listed in Section 2 of Article 198. It states, “The appointed members shall be appointed by the President as follows, that is to say – (a) one from among persons who hold or have held office as a judge of a court having unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters in some part of the Commonwealth or a court having jurisdiction in appeals from any such court acting after meaningful consultation with the Leader of the opposition and (b) not less than one and not more than two from among persons who are not attorneys-at-law in active practice, after the National Assembly has meaningfully consulted such bodies as appear to it to represent attorneys-at-law in Guyana and signified its choice of members to the President.”
Norton had previously explained that the committee originally sought one nominee each from the Guyana Bar Association and the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers. The former submitted a name, while the latter had a difficulty doing so. It was later decided that the Bar Association’s nominee would be the only one submitted to the National Assembly.
According to Article 199 of the Constitution, the JSC has the power to make appointments of judicial and legal officers and to remove and to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices. Such persons include the office of the Commissioner of Title, Magistrates, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, the Registrar of the High Court, the Deputy Registrar of the High Court, the Registrar of Deeds, the Deputy Registrar of Deeds and such offices connected with the courts of Guyana, and appointments for which legal qualifications are required, as may be prescribed by Parliament.
The JSC also plays a critical role in the selection of judges.
Since its life came to an end on September 30th, 2017, there have been calls from within the legal fraternity for it to be reconstituted.
Newly-appointed Senior Counsel (SC) Stephen Fraser recently added his voice to those calls.
“…If I have one hope… [it] is that the Judicial Service Commission be constituted…,” Fraser said during a special sitting of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Judicature last Friday.
He reminded the court of two constitutional challenges that resulted from the fact that there was no constituted JSC at the time. The present state of affairs and those two cases, he said, share a common thread.
Fraser added that the issue is particularly dear to him because his friend Rafiq Khan SC could have still been on the bench today if a JSC was in place to extend his six-month tenure as an acting Justice of Appeal. Khan, along with former Magistrate and University of the West Indies lecturer Christopher Arif Bulkan, were appointed temporary Justices of Appeal by President Granger in early 2018. The JSC, before its life came to an end on September 30th, 2017, had interviewed both men and recommended them to the president.
According to Fraser, for a period of 18 months to two years, “I felt as if the practice of law was like a sewing machine. Cases came, were dealt with… [But] my friend Rafiq was no longer in the Court of Appeal. My friend Rafiq, I am sure, would still be on the Court of Appeal today were there a functioning Judicial Service Commission and I am sure that today we would have still been enjoying a wonderfully functioning judicial system.”
President David Granger has made a commitment to reconstitute the JSC once some nominations have to be made by the parliamentary committee. “Once this is done, I move ahead. There is no reason for it to be delayed further,” he told reporters at the Ministry of the Presidency recently.
