News

Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Judge Priya Levers, who the United Kingdom Privy Council ruled last week should be removed from the bench in the Cayman Islands for misbehaviour, is insisting that she has no race bias.

"I am not racist," Levers told The Gleaner last week Friday and emphasised that the Privy Council acknowledged that it was her comments which gave the appearance of racism.

"I gave up my Sri Lankan passport voluntarily to become a Jamaican.

"I am married to a Jamaican and I have three Jamaican children who are my life," the judge said.

Levers explained that of the four cases which featured in her removal from the bench, only one of them involved a Jamaican.

She said ill health would prevent her return to private practice.

Levers, who migrated to Jamaica in 1977, operated a thriving legal practice in Jamaica before going to the Cayman Islands in 2002 to act as High Court judge and was appointed to the judiciary in April 2003.

She cited sections of the law lords' judgement as proof of her high standards.

A sound lawyer

The Privy Council, in upholding a ruling by a tribunal in the Cayman Islands last year, said, "It is now time to stand back and look at the overall picture. The large body of statements of those who have known and who have worked with Levers J. over the years shows that she has many admirable qualities. She is a sound lawyer. She is industrious and she sets high standards. She had many admirers at the court."

But she was not spared the Privy Council's wrath in other areas:

"Unfortunately she has not kept that disapproval to herself. It has led her repeatedly to make in court comments that have ranged from the inappropriate to the outrageous about those who have appeared before her and on two occasions about her judicial colleagues.

"So far, as those who appeared in her court were concerned, the disapproval and inappropriate comments in evidence before the Board appear to have been directed predominantly against women, and particularly women from outside the Cayman Islands, but it would not be right to deduce from those instances any race or gender bias on the part of Levers J."

The Privy Council, however, indicated that there were occasions when Levers gave "the appearance of racism, bias against foreigners and bias in favour of the defence in criminal cases".

While stating that there were "fatal flaws" in Levers' career, the Privy Council did not totally side with a Cayman Islands tribunal which castigated her for misconduct.

Said the law lords: "The board does not endorse the unqualified terms in which the tribunal saw fit to condemn Levers J. ... . The board is, however, satisfied that by her misconduct, Levers J. showed that she was not fit to continue to serve as a judge of the Grand Court and humbly advised Her Majesty that she should be removed from that office on the grounds of her misbehaviour."