Former Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar has convinced the Privy Council that she was unduly pressured by Chief Justice Ivor Archie into tendering her resignation as a High Court judge in 2017. Here's more in this report.
00:00Since July of 2017, Marcia and Cesar had been legally battling what she said was the Chief Justice Ivorace's heavy-handed approach
00:10by threatening to have disciplinary proceedings instituted against her if she refused to tender her resignation as a judge and return to the magistracy.
00:20What led to the resignation letter being tendered was a series of meetings Cesar had with Ivorace following her appointment to the bench
00:29after it came to Archie's attention that the former Chief Magistrate had left behind 53 incomplete cases at the Port of Spain Magistrates' Court.
00:39As Cesar had informed Archie prior to her appointment that there were only 28 cases on her docket,
00:46based on the evidence, this information was obtained by S. Cesar from administrative court staff at the Magistrates' Court.
00:54At first instance, then High Court Judge David Harris had found that S. Cesar was not forced into tendering the resignation letter.
01:03In October of 2022, however, an appeal court panel comprising Justices Alan Mendonca, Nolan Barreau and Alice Yorke-Suhon
01:14set aside that judgment after finding that she was pressured and quote-unquote tricked by Archie
01:21into signing and submitting the already prepared resignation letter to the then President.
01:27When word spread at the Port of Spain Magistrates' Court that the judiciary had given the directive
01:32that the 53 parted matters be started afresh before another magistrate,
01:38a near riot broke out between some prisoners and officers of the court and process branch.
01:44Some of those prisoners had been on remand for up to a decade,
01:48awaiting the completion of their respective preliminary inquiries on charges of murder.
01:53Then the newly appointed Chief Magistrate, now a temporary High Court Judge,
01:58was tasked with the responsibility of presiding over the matters.
02:02Since then, all of the matters have been completed.
02:06Today, the Privy Council ruled in favour of Marcia S. Cesar.
02:10Now, in spite of her not functioning as a judge since April 27, 2017,
02:16when the resignation letter was tendered, she will be entitled to all salaries and benefits
02:22she would have received up to today's date.
02:25S. Cesar will also be entitled to compensation for breaches to her constitutional rights
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