Lightbourne
Garwin Davis, Staff Reporter
CALLING HER comments "reckless and dangerous", Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson said he has very little option but to bring Opposition Senator Do-rothy Lightbourne before a legal tribunal for disparaging remarks made against Resident Magistrates (RM).
"I would like to just leave this alone, but I can't," Mr. Nicholson said from the Senate floor on Friday night. "As head of the Jamaican Bar, I am obligated to do something. She has been given the opportunity to withdraw the comment but has refused. Seeing that she is standing by her statement, I will have no other choice but to send the matter to the General Legal Council (GLC) the disciplinary body of the legal profession for them to deal with."
Mr. Nicholson was referring to comments made by Ms. Lightbourne during a heated debate in the Senate on Thursday, where she said that RMs gave rulings in favour of the Government, so as to improve their chances of being appointed to the Supreme Court.
"What my colleague Senator Lightbourne did from the floor of the Senate is not just something we can pretend didn't happen," said the Attorney-General, who is also a Government Senator and Minister of Justice. "We have to be scrupulously careful, even with the concern we might have about the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). We have to be careful that we don't bring negative inference to the debate or for that matter any discussion we might have.
"What my colleague did has called into question the integrity of one arm of the judiciary whether it was intended or not."
CHARGE OF CORRUPTION
Pressed by Opposition Senators to explain the statement, Mr. Nicholson continued: "Some of our RMs may ultimately be invited to sit in the higher court whether we stay with the Privy Council or move to the CCJ. If they are susceptible to Government pressure, as the Senator said, what is this saying about the state of our legal affairs. It means they will go on and corrupt the system whether its with the Privy Council or the CCJ."
On Friday, Senate President Syringa Marshall-Burnett, having informed Ms. Lightbourne that she was in breach of Standing Order 357, twice asked her to withdraw the comment. Ms. Lightbourne refused, on the grounds that her statement had been taken out of context.
Mr. Nicholson was incensed. "Clearly this Senator has no remorse for the damage she may have done to the legal profession," he said.
Ms. Lightbourne responding to the Attorney-General said, "Minister, you recall I say judges of the Supreme Court and of the Court of Appeal are the ones with constitutional protection and, therefore, can make fearless decision I stand by that."
GOLDING'S CONCERNS
Opposition Senator Bruce Golding then tried to come to her defence, "I was under the impression that we had broken important ground throughout this debate I would hate to see us lose that," he said. "I know a lot of RMs I am not in a position to say whether they make rulings which favour the Government or not. What they have said to me is that some of them do feel intimidated and worry about how appointments are made to the Supreme Court. Let's not pretend that there are not concerns out there some of them have even said this to the media."
Senator Nicholson, however, would not relent. "If this was only about security of tenure, we wouldn't be having this discussion," he said. "It's a different thing altogether totally different. What this member said is that RMs make rulings that favour the Government because they want to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Contacted yesterday, Senator Nicholson said it was not his intention to punish Miss Lightbourne, who ironically is not only a member of the GLC, but also heads the disciplinary body of the Bar council. "I want the GLC to have her acknowledge that she did something wrong," he said. "This is a matter of principle."
