As the latest saga in the elections petition case brought against 10 sitting Dominica Labour Party (DLP) MPs by the parliamentary opposition, United Workers Party (UWP) continues, lead counsel for the defendants, Anthony Astaphan SC, is calling on civil society to break their silence and to defend the integrity of the judicial system.
After mounting pressure for her to recuse herself from hearing the case, Justice Bernie Stephenson has stepped down and will no longer be hearing the matter.
Early this week, Cochrane villager and strong advocate for the UWP, Loftus Durand, wrote to the Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme (ECSC) Court, Dame Janice Pereira, asking that Justice Stephenson be removed from the case for fear of biasness towards the UWP. His sentiments were also shared by Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, who indicated that Justice Stephenson could not be relied upon to deal with the matter “in a fair and transparent manner.”
With the scheduled hearing of the case set for Wednesday, 10th June 2020, a new judge has to be assigned since Justice Stephenson will no longer hear the matter, a move Astaphan has described as “a blatant and flagrant attack on the judicial system.”
“This is undermining the integrity of one of the fundamental institutions of our society which is the high court judge and I think this is the first time from the Associated States court from since 1967 to the independent Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court have I ever seen or heard such vicious and malicious campaign against the integrity of a judge. And the judge felt that she could not physically, mentally, and intellectually tolerate that sort of abuse,” he lamented.
Based on the current turn of events, Astaphan said that he is waiting with baited breath to see the response of civil society groups.
“And I want to know what are these civil society, the NGOs doing and saying about it. That is an extraordinary event. And rather than celebrating, those who caused it should hang their heads in eternal shame for embarrassing the judicial system,” Astaphan opined.
Meantime, the Dominica Bar Association (DBA) has issued a statement on the matter stating that the fact that a trial judge rules against a party and or that the judge’s decision is overturned on appeal, is in no way means that this judge is “incompetent and or bias.”
“The DBA seriously encourages the public to not allow the dissatisfaction with the outcome of a case to translate into a distrust into our justice system or into a lack of confidence in the ability or integrity of any judge and to never allow it to result in the public denigration of any judge or the judicial system,” the DBA statement states. It called on everyone including members of its own legal fraternity to “show due respect and regard for the judiciary which is a critical institution for preserving “our democracy.”
The DBA encouraged all citizens to “voice any and all concerns that they may have about the judiciary in a proper and respectful manner that recognizes the rights of all persons including the judges who, like all other persons are entitled to have their reputations protected against false and or misleading that may intend to bring them into odium or disrupt in the eyes of reasonable thinking members of society.”