Mr. Ashley Bernadine President Grenada Bar Association St. George’s Dear Mr. Bernadine Re : Anselm Clouden’s unacceptable call for the removal of a member of the Judiciary 1. My life-long bosom friend and Grenlaw Chambers partner Mr. Anselm Clouden, a client of mine , has embarked upon a publicised campaign for the removal from office of a judicial officer , a Magistrate, His Worship Mr. Jerry Seales, a client of mine. 2. The immediate trigger to Mr. Clouden’s publicised call for the removal of the Magistrate is a decision made by the Magistrate regarding a client of Mr. Clouden’s, although Mr. Clouden also refers to certain other decisions given by the Magistrate. 3. A lawyer may certainly take the view that a ruling relating to his client by a judicial officer, Magistrate or Registrar or Master or Judge, is woefully wrong as to the law or the facts or both . If so, the lawyer is perfectly entitled, perhaps indeed obliged, to advise his client to avail himself of the recourses properly open to vent his dissatisfaction with such decision, to challenge it. Such recourses, practically, are a reference, a case stated , a statutory application, an appeal, judicial review or a constitutional motion. On such a recourse, a court is well able to scotch any heresy, unorthodoxy , errancy or unfairness by a judicial officer. 4. What is clearly inappropriate is for a lawyer to hold up that decision as cause for the removal of the judicial officer, particularly in a publicised campaign . Such a campaign must tend to reduce the judiciary to public ridicule; undermining the due respect for the judiciary which is jealously guarded sacrosanctly by the independence of the judiciary. The judiciary is the last bastion of freedom; therefore, to attack it this way is not a boost to freedom. We are not to burn down a cathedral to swinge a seale. 5. It is therefore quite right that, over the years, the Grenada Bar Association, “the Bar”, has stoutly defended the judiciary against attacks which tend to reduce the judiciary to ridicule. The Bar hit the road protesting that a lawyer, contracted by the last government, sought to scandalise a judge . That was when, dissatisfied with certain judicial decisions made by the judge, that lawyer asked the High Court to stop the judge trying any case in which the lawyer appeared. That application was struck out for what is was, an abuse of the process of the court . 6. Displeasure with judicial decision-making by the judge fuelled the fire with which the lawyer made that ill-fated application. Displeasure with judicial decision-making by the magistrate drives Clouden in his present publicised campaign to get the magistrate off the Bench . 7. Even as regards less direct attacks on the judiciary, the Bar has been vigilant. The Bar took the Attorney-General to court, and got justice, when the last government interfered with the office of DPP in a manner tending to ridicule the administration of justice . 8. Justice is not a cloistered virtue. Nor too should justice be warped by the intimidation of publicised campaigns for the removal of judicial officers who render decisions displeasing to some quarters, in or out of government . Our focus should be, not on a particular judicial officer, but rather on the big picture featuring the independence of the judiciary . 9. Nor does it matter that Clouden’s campaign sets its sight on a magistrate, and not a judge. Magistrates decide far more cases than judges in the Caribbean . So, when, a few days ago, in Trinidad and Tobago, a high court judge in court made remarks apt to ridicule a magistrate, the chief justice swiftly chided the judge . The judge there did not call for the removal of the magistrate, yet his remarks were unacceptable to the independence of the judiciary. How much more so, then, must be Clouden’s campaign, waged just because of Clouden’s displeasure with decision – making by the magistrate . 10. There should therefore be great interest in what will be the response by the Bar to Clouden’s publicised campaign. 11. Meanwhile, I send this letter openly, first to you, Mr. Bernadine, next to Mr. Clouden, and then beyond; contending that Mr. Clouden’s publicised campaign is wholly misconceived. 12. All the best . Yours sincerely Sgd Francis Alexis …………………………………. Francis Alexis