Attorney General Wilfred Elrington made waves at the ceremonial opening of the Supreme Court yesterday. He came with his guns loaded, rattling off figures to remonstrate the Chief Justice for what has become his annual exercise in lamenting the lack of resources given to the judiciary. And while the tone of that riposte raised a few eyebrows, jaws got slack when Elrington – the highest legal officer in the land and the symbolic head of the bar questioned the competence of at least one current member of the bench – the very bench that he was addressing! Here are those remarks.
Hon. Wilfred Sedi Elrington, Attorney General
“And it was nothing frequent when I heard of appointments being made even to the Judiciary, that I complaint of publicly; publicly. But no one paid any heed to it. It was not because I had anything personal but I know that the job of a Supreme Court Judge is an extremely difficult one. I sat on the bench. Criminal cases are the easiest but that gives people a lot trouble. Civil cases can be impossible. I personally don’t know how we will cope with the very complex civil cases that are coming to our courts on such frequent basis. In fact I am somewhat happy that perhaps some of them are resolved in foreign jurisdictions because I don’t know what would happen.
They are becoming more complex, they are becoming more frequent and they take the best minds in the country to deal with them effectively. That is the case in any jurisdictions; British select the best minds, people who have had long practice before the Bar to place them on the bench. We don’t have that luxury and I readily concede that. But I think it is incumbent upon persons who volunteer to assume such very high positions to work without sleeping in order to justify the handsome remuneration that they are given and the very great expectations from the populace, that’s is my view. That is my view. The last administration with the connivance or complicity or collusion of public officers, senior public officers, facilitated the elevation of people who never should have been elevated to high positions.”
Elrington also criticized the judges for working inefficiently and taking too long to deliver judgements.
