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The Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that Marcia Ayers-Caesar was "coerced and forced out of office" as a High Court judge by the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, headed by Chief Justice Ivor Archie.
The three judges upheld an appeal by former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar over being pressured into resigning as a High Court judge in 2017.
Ayers-Caesar sued the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC), headed by Chief Justice Ivor Archie.
The JLSC has the authority to appoint and discipline judicial officers.
In a ruling on Thursday, Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Nolan Bereaux and Alice Yorke-Soo Hon delivered three separate, but unanimous decisions.
Bereaux read the court’s orders and declarations at a virtual hearing.
Among them is that the JLSC’s decision was ultra vires, null and void, and amounted to illegal conduct by the commission because it was intended to threaten and pressure her from resigning contrary to the JLSC’s powers under section 137 of the Constitution and was not a permitted form of removal from office.
They also said she continued to hold the position of Puisne judge of the High Court and ordered compensation for her to be assessed.
Her purported resignation letter to the President was also ordered to be expunged from the president’s records. The judges also granted a stay of 21 days of their orders to give the JLSC time to decide on its next steps, if any.
Ayers-Caesar was appointed a judge on April 12, 2017, but resigned 15 days later amid public uproar over 53 unfinished cases in the magistrates court. She said the JLSC acted unlawfully in seeking her resignation as a judge, it unlawfully procured her resignation and acted unlawfully in treating as effective her consequent purported resignation.
She said she was pressured by the JLSC to resign, in that she was told to sign an already prepared resignation letter or her appointment would be revoked by the President.
In her legal challenge, Ayers-Caesar asked that her purported resignation be set aside and she be reinstated as a judge, and compensated, saying her “resignation as a judge” was orchestrated.
Ayers-Caesar resigned on April 27, after meeting with the CJ.
She said she made no decision to resign on April 27, nor was she “embarrassed” when the Chief Justice produced a list showing she had 53 part-heard cases.
“I was threatened and told I had to resign or else the president would be advised to revoke my appointment,” she said in her testimony at the trial of the matter in 2020, denying that she chose to resign because she was embarrassed that the numbers had changed and she was being accused of being selfish.
Ayers-Caesar was represented by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, and Ronnie Bissessar, SC.
Attorneys Russell Martineau, SC, Deobroah Peake SC, Ian Benjamin SC, Ian Roach appeared for the JLSC.
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