BU is awaiting the remainder of the posted document because true to expectation it is not yet available on the Supreme Court of Judicature website and it is not readily available in soft copy. Yet, the losing attorney, Barry Gale QC, has commented on it in the press. “It” is the decision of the Court of Appeal (Justices of Appeal Burgess and Goodridge and Justice William Chandler (ag)) in overturning the decision of the Chief Justice, sitting as a judge of the High Court, in the Banks Holdings Limited matter. The only decision that the Chief Justice has actually authored since taking office years ago.
To say that the Court of Appeal has ‘KOed’ Chief Justice Marston Gibson would be to understate the case by a considerable margin. The Court of Appeal has in fact decimated the Chief Justice. It constitutes a serious indictment of the judicial competence of the Chief Justice in the starkest possible judicial terms. In other common law jurisdictions, such an overturning and judgement would cause any self-respecting judge to resign with haste.
So what have we got? We have a chief justice who has: (a) singularly failed to solve the enormous backlog of cases before both the High Court and the Court of Appeal; (b) who has himself been sued for abuse of power and gross misconduct; (c) who has indulged in press statements prejudicial to a case before the Court of Appeal of which he is head; (d) who has spent his judicial time dealing with bail applications, rather than trying cases; (e) who has usurped the authority and rights of the executive in his issuance of certain practice directions; and (f) who has now been made to look like an untalented first year law student by the Court of Appeal. Indeed, the sole talents and accomplishments of the Chief Justice seem to have been cocktail parties, overseas trips and getting his name and photo in the press – in that order. Oh, and let us not forget embarrassing both himself and the country in the region and internationally.
Once again, BU apologizes that it is only able to post a part of the judgement, but will, in due course and as soon as we receive it, post the remainder.
- Read the full judgement of Court of Appeal ruling handed down by Justices Goodridge, Burgess and Chandler
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