Montserrat 4

The FCO proposes to have the Constitution of Montserrat permit the removal of trial by jury:  The wording of section 6 of the draft Constitution makes possible the removal of the right to trial by jury.  There is no suggestion that the people of Montserrat consider this new development either advisable or desirable.  This proposal may have been stimulated by recent failures in prosecution mainly of sexual cases.  Such failures, from what I have been told, spring from patent weaknesses in the prosecution’s cases, and not to any perversity of the jury.

This is not the only assault on the fundamental right of the people of Montserrat to the protection of law.  The same section 6 contains a provision contemplating abolition of the right to appeal from some or all convictions in the Magistrate’s Court.  Such a drastic curtailment of this fundamental right is inappropriate without thorough consultation with and support from the people of Montserrat, of which there is no evidence. 

Such a proposal is so offensive as to be incredible in a draft Constitution proposed by an FCO legal team.

Court orders

Court orders:  You may recall we are looking at our section 7 fundamental right to the enjoyment of personal property.  Government is prohibited from taking away our property except under a law which pays us prompt and adequate compensation.  We are now looking at the several exceptions listed in the section.

       Some of them were quite obscure to us.  The ninth exception is more familiar.  It says that it is not an unlawful deprivation of property if it is as a result of an order of the court.  That seems a little obvious.

           The court is there to settle disputes between citizen and citizen, and between citizens and the State.  If the court orders our property to be taken away from us, and we do not agree with that decision, then it is for us to appeal to the higher court, the Court of Appeal.  We cannot be heard to protest that the order of the court is unconstitutional.

Search Warrants

What is the proper response of a Justice of the Peace in Anguilla who is asked to issue a search warrant?  We all heard recently about a search warrant executed by the police.  The warrant had been issued by a Justice of the Peace, or JP.  The JP in question is no ordinary one.  He is the Rt Rev Errol Brooks OBE Bishop of the Diocese of the Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba.  The warrant had been sought by the police to search the offices of a young attorney.  They said she had appeared in court representing a person charged with fraud.  She is no ordinary young attorney.  She is one with a spotless record.  More to the point, she is a candidate in the upcoming general elections.  These are all issues that cried out for the application in question to be treated with strict regard to the law governing the issuing of search warrants. 

 The issuing of a warrant to search someone’s home or office is not a task lightly to be executed.  It is not a mere administrative task, to be routinely performed.  The issuing of a search warrant is a quasi-judicial function, to be performed based on the evidence presented to the Magistrate or other judicial officer.  Such a warrant includes power to enter the premises, by force, and breaking doors, if necessary, and to search the same for files, correspondence, computers, cellular telephones, flash drives, fixed and external hard drives, and to seize such items and bring them in due course before the Magistrate.  Such an application in relation to any professional such as a certified accountant, a physician or a lawyer, becomes a particularly sensitive matter.  The private and confidential affairs of possibly hundreds of innocent clients will be exposed to unauthorized eyes, and no one knows what use will be made of the information.  Such a step is clearly open to abuse.

The real reason why the police are not permitted to search a home or office without a warrant is to interpose the protection of a judicial decision between the citizen and the police.  All jurisdictions with the rule of law put constraints on the powers of police investigators.  They may not invade a home or office unless they obtain a search warrant, save where the officer is in ‘hot pursuit’.  It is a basic line of defence of the citizen against arbitrary search and seizure that such a warrant be first obtained.  Otherwise, we should all be subject to home invasion by the armed wing of the State on the slightest suspicion. 

As every first year law student learns, such a quasi-judicial function is to be performed only on the judicial officer being satisfied that the prescribed circumstances exist.  Our liberty depends on the independent scrutiny of the judiciary to protect the citizen against the excesses which would inevitably flow from allowing an executive officer to decide for himself whether the conditions under which he is permitted to enter upon private property have been met.  That is why an application for a search warrant must be accompanied by an affidavit setting out the evidence available and the grounds for the officer’s belief that further evidence is likely to be obtained as a result of the search.  Only a trained lawyer, familiar with the laws of evidence and the intricacies of criminal procedure, is likely to be able properly to perform this serious function.  No lay JP, even one as eminent as a Bishop, is qualified to issue such a warrant.  Such a warrant would only be granted by a qualified Magistrate if he or she was first satisfied that there was adequate evidence and grounds for suspicion.  This basic protection of the citizen must not be permitted to be trampled by the unnecessary use of a lay JP to avoid  the investigator having to go before a qualified Magistrate and to satisfy him that the test has been met.

So, the question becomes, how is a non-legal Justice of the Peace in Anguilla properly supposed to react when a police officer comes to him or her, in the middle of a political campaign, just before general elections, when there are two qualified acting Magistrates who could easily have been approached, and the lay JP is requested to issue a search warrant to search a professional person’s office and/or home, especially when that person is a candidate for election to the House of Assembly?  

 In my submission, the only proper thing for him to respond is, “There are two qualified Magistrates in Anguilla at this time.  You are asking me to do something that is going to have very serious consequences for the reputation and future career of a young professional.  There will be serious implications for the political campaign of this candidate for election to the House of Assembly.  You must be crazy if you think I am going to just sign and issue the Warrant without knowing what I am doing.  Leave my office immediately!”

For the future guidance of all non-lawyer JPs in Anguilla, that would be the only proper reaction to such a request.

The job

On Becoming a Judge – By Don Mitchell CBE QC, former secretary of the OECS Bar Association, 1989-1999

When your heart gives out, and you die ten times on the operating table, it is usually a good sign that it is time to retire from the practice of law.  That happened to me. 

I can still remember Dr Terry Isaacs, my wife’s gynaecologist, settling me onto his examination couch with the words, “Well, Don, I’ll do my best, but you are the wrong gender, and I will be examining the wrong end.”  He was the only doctor I knew in St Vincent at the time. 

He listened hard on his stethoscope for a few minutes, then said, “Don, you have the heart rate of a teenage Somali long-distance runner.  That would be very good if you were a teenage Somali long-distance runner. But, since you are a sedentary middle aged West Indian lawyer, I think you should go to see a specialist.”  With that, he dispatched me to be examined by Jeff Massay in Barbados.

Jeff is a brilliant surgeon, and he undoubtedly saved my life.  I remember him intently reading the notes his nurse had made, then looking up and saying, “Your heart is beating only 45 times per minute.”

“Is that good or bad”, I asked.  He shook his head, “Lawyers and lizards, we always knew both of you required very little oxygen.”

After that he put me on the table in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and inserted my pacemaker.  He had to put it on the right hand side of my chest.  He said as he did so, “Not to worry, Don, usually with lawyers we find no heart at all.  At least you have one, even if it is on the wrong side.”

That is when I died and retired from law and went to heaven as a judge in St Vincent.

Years later, Chief Justice Dennis Bryon told me of the shock he received when he got his first pay cheque as a judge in Antigua.  His two sons’ school fees in Barbados were more than the total amount of the judge’s pay cheque.  He had to bring them back home immediately.  My salary cheque for my first month did not cover Maggie and my wine bill at Gonsalves Liquors in Kingstown.

In fact, the salary cheque was only a few hundred dollars more than I used to pay one of my secretaries before I closed my practice.  I must say conditions improved a couple of years later when the Prime Ministers agreed to double our salaries.  I trust it has been doubled again.  They cannot continue to rely on a supply of half-dead lawyers being available to fill the bench of the Easter Caribbean Supreme Court.

After two and a half years in St Vincent, with spells in Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica, the Chief Justice moved me to Antigua.  There I was to spend another two and a half years, with spells in Nevis, St Kitts, Montserrat, Anguilla and Tortola.  The amount of work was overwhelming.  I remember asking the Chief Justice why he kept sending me to places where there was so much work to do.  His only response was, “Don we are both Kittitians.  Kittitians really know how to cut cane.”  Which, I think, was his way of telling me not to be a wimp, but to soldier on.

I think I did well to survive doing the job for five years.  I was ready to go after four.  But, I hung on for five, because I had been told by head office in St Lucia that five years would ensure I got a pension, or at the very least a gratuity.  Four years’ service would not count.  Five years would be necessary for there to be a little reward at the end of the day. 

After five years on the bench, I was completely exhausted.  I was dropping things and forgetting things.  I went to see the premier psychiatrist in Antigua, Dr James King.  I told him that I was very worried, as I was in the terminal stages of Alzheimers.  He asked me why I was seeing him if I already knew what my problem was.  I explained that I needed a second opinion.

He took pity on me and gave me an examination.  I had to answer a lot of questions and do various memory tricks.  At the end of it, he explained to me that I was not suffering from Alzheimers.  I was, he said, an aging obsessive-compulsive.  Apparently, when you are a young obsessive-compulsive that is not such a bad thing.  As Dr King explained, he would much rather have an obsessive-compulsive lawyer worrying over his clients’ legal problem than have one who laughed and relaxed all the time while mailing out his bills.

The problem with being an aging obsessive-compulsive is that your body cannot answer to all the demands it was able to handle in younger years.  The body begins to rebel when you decide to do two trials a day, and one hundred Chamber matters on Friday morning.  Since it takes two days to prepare for one day of Chamber matters, that means staying up to all hours of the night reading files and making notes about their contents.  One did that in between writing the judgments. 

We were told we had to write our judgments within three months of the end of the case.  That was too long a period.  Every time I waited three months, it was a disaster.  I had to read every file and every note all over again.  It was like I had never seen the witnesses nor heard the evidence.  I found I had to write every judgment within a day or two of the end of the trial, since I immediately forgot that the trial had ever taken place, far less what had been said in it.  Dr King explained it was the natural result of an aging obsessive-compulsive believing that he could continue to bite off more than he could chew.

The doctor recommended that I take a long holiday.  What did he mean by a long holiday?  Six months, he suggested.  Needless to say, being an obsessive-compulsive, I applied for a year off.  To my astonishment, the Judicial and Legal Services Commission granted it.  They must really have been glad to see my back.  So, we packed up the dogs and possessions, gave up the house in Antigua, and flew back to Anguilla.

After six months resting, gardening, reacquainting myself with family and friends, I was thoroughly enjoying myself.  You can imagine what I did next.  I compulsively wrote to the acting Chief Justice, Adrian Saunders, submitting my resignation.  I had had enough.  There was no way I was going back to that heavy burden of obsessively trying cases and worrying about justice in Antigua and Barbuda.

It would have been nice if there had been the promised gratuity at the end of it.  Turns out, you have to work for at least ten years to expect to get anything under the Pensions Act of Anguilla.  I did not fight it.  There was no client to pay my fees for going to court.  I compulsively forgot about pension. 

Since then, I have been obsessively enjoying myself teaching CAPE law three half-days a week in the High School in Anguilla.  I have 18 students this year.  I fill in the spare time providing a free legal aid clinic three half-days a week out of the Welfare Department. 

I call it practising stress-free law.

[I wrote this article for the OECS Bar Association 20th anniversary commemorative magazine published earlier this month.  My apologies to those who have heard the jokes before.]

Magistracy

Why is it not appropriate for the Commissioner of Police of Anguilla on his retirement to be appointed Magistrate of Anguilla?  It is unfortunate that I have to ask this question.  The answer should be obvious to all.  The answer is that such an appointment will tend to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice, and to bring the judiciary into contempt.  Just in case there is one single person out there who does not  see the point immediately, let me try my best to explain why this is so.

First of all, every police case brought in the Magistrate’s Court is brought in the name of the Commissioner of Police.  The Magistrate’s Court deals with 95% of the criminal cases brought to court in any country.  The trial of crime in Anguilla is for all practical purposes synonymous with the Magistrate’s Court.  If I get a summons, it will be titled “Commissioner of Police versus Don Mitchell”.  Then, every single investigation of a crime is conducted under the direction of the Commissioner of Police.  He is the head of the police force. 

In addition to the obvious conflicts of interest and questions of bias raised, there is the fundamental question of the separation of powers.  At least since the time of the Duc de Montesquieu, the principle of separation of powers has been an intrinsic foundation of the rule of law.  Ask any first year law student.

The consequence is that for a person who served as the senior executive officer of the police force to move directly into the position of Magistrate of Anguilla, without even a cooling off period of several years, is to induce such mistrust and misgivings in society as will tend to undermine the administration of justice in this country. 

What am I going to think about the sort of justice I am going to get if, when I respond to the summons, and turn up in court on Monday morning, and the man, who just a few scant months ago was the chief investigator into the charges brought against, me is sitting there with a smile on his face asking me how do I plead to the charge?  To say that I would feel outrage is the least of it.

            Then, there is the question of qualification.  It is not written in a law anywhere that I recall, but, a stipendiary Magistrate in the Leeward Islands, ie, one who is a qualified lawyer and who is paid a salary, has not since at least the 1890s been considered to be properly qualified unless he or she is a licensed barrister or attorney at law who has practised at the Bar for a minimum period of 5 years prior to the appointment.  The reason for this rule is well known to all legal practitioners.  Only a practicing attorney will be attuned to the finer points of the rules of evidence and of law.  When the Commissioner of Anguilla cabled me in 1976 in St Kitts and invited me to come to Anguilla to be the Magistrate, his cable said in part, “We understand you have been a practicing barrister for the past five years . . .”  By that, he meant that in his opinion I had the minimum qualification.

            This is particularly important when you are aware of the legal history of Anguilla.  Some 30 years and more ago, in the year 1978 to be exact, Anguilla had not yet re-joined the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.  We were finding it difficult to get a judge to conduct the Criminal Assizes in Anguilla.  The Anguilla House of Assembly, in an attempt to speed up justice and to reduce the backlog of indictable cases, enacted a law making almost every felony and misdemeanour, excepting only murder, manslaughter and rape, triable by the Magistrate.  The Magistrate of Anguilla undoubtedly has the widest jurisdiction of any Magistrate anywhere in the West Indies.  It is a grave responsibility to be the Magistrate of Anguilla.  Only an attorney, not only well-learned in the principles of law, but also well-schooled in the practice of law, will be considered by the Bar to be capable of dispensing justice in such a court to the people of Anguilla.  Academic qualification alone is not sufficient.

In the case of our Commissioner, it is true that he went to law school.  It is true that he received both a bachelor of laws and a legal education certificate.  He is academically qualified to be a Magistrate.  But, this occurred some 10 to 15 years ago.  Since then, he has functioned solely as an officer within the police force.  He may have appeared as a prosecutor once or twice in the early days, but not in the past 10 years to my knowledge.  As such, in my opinion, he is completely unqualified for the job.

There is nothing wrong with a police officer rising to fill the post of Magistrate.  Many of us older heads know the story of John Lynch-Wade.  He served for nearly 30 years as Chief of Police of St Kitts.  He was the Chief of Police in Basseterre at the time of the Anguilla Revolution of 1967, and was alive and well when I last greeted him not a year ago.  When ‘Chiefie Wade’ retired, he went to UWI in Barbados and studied law.  On receiving his LlB, he went on to law school in Trinidad and obtained his legal education certificate.  He returned to St Kitts where he practised law for several years.  He was then placed on contract to be a Magistrate.  He functioned so well, that he rose to be the most senior Magistrate in St Kitts.  He filled that post for many years, until, a few years ago, he retired much loved and appreciated.  But, you see the difference, I hope.

            It is not as if this is the first time we have raised this issue in Anguilla.  I can well remember when a young Crown Counsel returned from Law School to Anguilla about 15 years ago.  Some Attorney-General made the idiotic recommendation to have him appointed as the Magistrate of Anguilla shortly after he returned from completing his education.  The Bar Association went on strike, and caused an uproar.  The Magistrate in question was told in no uncertain terms that no barrister would permit his or her client to appear before him, as he was not qualified to dispense justice in a court of law.  He quietly allowed himself to be transferred to Administration, from which he has now risen to be the Deputy Governor of Anguilla. 

            And now, he is on the verge, the cusp, of making the same mistake all over again.

Prisons

More Anguilla news available on Hansard.  As a result of another Parliamentary Question, Minister Chris Bryant has given us some more interesting news about Anguilla.  We learn that the Anguilla prison is presently holding nearly twice as many prisoners as it was originally built to house.  How many prisoners to a cell is that?  Is this statistic not a recipe for increasing prison violence?

Overseas Territory	Certified normal accommodation	Current population
Anguilla	35	58
BVI	98	120
Cayman Islands	145	216
Montserrat	52	15
Turks & Caicos	102	108, rising shortly to 150

More interesting, perhaps, is the note to the Turks and Caicos Islands figures.  How does Bryant know that the prison population is shortly to be increased by nearly 39% to a total of 150? 

And will the increase consist of politicians or merely of lawyers?

The real concern for us is that Anguilla is the only Overseas Territory in the West Indies to have its prison so over-filled.  Unless a new prison is built, I would suggest that the Magistrates should be using alternative means of sentencing to an increasing extent.  Failure to do so will risk prison rapes, the spread of HIV, and more burnings. 

In order to further reduce the risk of uncontrollable prison violence, the Governor should be actively considering releasing significant numbers of long-term, non-violent prisoners whose conduct has indicated remorse and who are not thought to represent a continuing threat to society.

PS:  24 October 2009 - Hansard has, without apology, altered the webpage linked to above to correct the footnote. It now appears attached to "Certified normal accommodation" instead of "Current population".  They could, at least, have said sorry for having originally mislead us.

Judicious

Random thoughts on writers’ block. I have nothing of interest to post on the blog. It has been over a week now since the last one. A house-full of guests is part of the problem. The devil has no chance to get at my hands now . . .

Another reason is that the political season has begun. The campaigning is going to bring the issues out into the daylight. The discussion will be much more effective and relevant to the needs of Anguilla than anything I can write on the blog. I am content to let the politicians, old and aspiring, debate the topics that interest us all. My contribution will not be worth two cents by comparison.

I have never in my life attended an Anguillian political meeting. They are real drama, I am told. But, I am not inclined to start attending now. Too old and cynical. The result is that I shall be unaware of many of the subjects of discussion. Unless someone is kind enough to drop me a line now and then to let me know :-)

Another reason for my writer’s block is that I am hearing that there are some major developments going on in the court. Both the Magistrates Court and the High Court have been producing some very important orders and decisions. Major events are playing out in that forum. The public knows nothing about them save for rumour. The court’s contribution to social development might as well be a play performed on a blacked-out stage. The singer’s mouth is moving, but the microphone has gone dead. There is no reporter who has the time to attend court and write up the happenings. No press-officer is employed to publicise what it is doing. There is a tradition that lawyers do not prepare press releases boasting about their forensic conquests. Most lawyers do not even receive the orders and judgments of the High Court in cases that do not concern them. Even though court decisions are public documents, they are dealt with as if they are private to the parties. Very few final judgments are posted on the Court’s website. Those few that are posted are out of date. I am reluctant to lean on any of my legal friends to beg them to scan and email me copies as they come to hand. What a waste of judicial time and effort. Such a pity, really.

Magistrates

Why do Magistrates have to be very careful about police evidence? Police officers are only human. They can lose their tempers just as quickly as you or me. They too can become berserk when that rush of adrenalin meets a low-sugar blood level. That is why no Magistrate worth his or her salt would believe police evidence that an accused youth “assaulted a police officer in the execution of his duty”, or “obstructed a police officer in the execution of his duty”, or even, “used indecent language to a police officer” without independent corroborating evidence. I have no statistical evidence to rely on. But, I would say from my own reading, listening and studying, that probably a full fifty percent of such accusations, when there is no independent corroborating evidence, is falsely concocted to cover up wrongful arrests.

It happens in every country, including the USA and in the UK. The video below is a report on a shocking case from the UK. A war hero, out drinking with friends, was mistaken by police for a person who had been reported as being unruly. They saw he had had too much to drink. They assumed that he was the culprit. They rushed him, flung him to the ground, and savagely beat him up when he struggled. All of it was caught on camera. The Magistrates still convicted him of the charges brought against him by the police. It took an appeal for him to be cleared of the false charges. Meanwhile, Lance Corporal Mark Aspinall lost any chance of getting a job, and his life has been ruined.

In the UK, there is an independent Police Complaints Commission. They investigate complaints from the public about misbehaviour on the part of the police. The Commission is swift to report when they find wrongdoing. Police officers can be severely reprimanded, or worse. Yet, despite knowing this, UK police officers still sometimes make the kind of mistake they made in relation to Aspinall.

What chance do members of the Anguillian public have of getting justice when we are mistreated by the police? We have no independent oversight of our police whatsoever. You can try complaining to the Commissioner of Police, or even to the Governor. See what response you get! You will be received politely enough. You will get every assurance that the complaint will be investigated. But, nothing ever comes of it. Not a single police officer to my knowledge has ever been reprimanded, far less prosecuted and punished, for committing any kind of offence in Anguilla. No apology has ever been made to a victim of police misconduct. Charges are dealt with “administratively”. The offending officer is asked to retire or resign quietly in return for the matter being hushed up. The offences that police officers have allegedly committed in Anguilla during my time have ranged from being the cause of persons dying in the police cells to shoplifting and other assorted crimes. Just five years ago, it was common gossip that only certain police officers were permitted to sell cocaine at Johnnos. I have stopped investigating cocaine distribution in Anguilla since I learned how widespread it is, and how dangerous it can be to become too interested in the personalities involved.

Let us hope that Aspinall is properly compensated for the brutal treatment he received.

We cannot be sure that our Anguillian Magistrates will see through fabricated police concoctions of evidence when they occur.

The new Constitution must give Anguillians some sure recourse from this kind of abuse taking place in the future.

By the way, does anyone know when we are going to be shown the “new” draft constitution the Ministers have been deciding on behind our backs? The one that the British are going to be told we have all agreed to?

Cayman Islands

Stuart Jack, a governor with balls. It is not often that you see a British governor of a colony taking firm action to restore integrity in public office. I have written often enough about the FCO’s preferred technique of brushing the dirt under the carpet. But, Stuart Jack is a governor of a different breed. It will be interesting to see if he serves out his full term of appointment in Cayman Islands. I expect that an opportunity will be found soon enough to return him to London. He has had a series of extraordinary challenges with both the judiciary and senior officers in the past year.

Stuart Jack

On 28 March, Jack announced that he had sent Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan, Deputy Commissioner Rudolph Dixon, and Detective Chief Superintendent John Jones on leave with immediate effect. He announced he was doing this to enable an investigating team from the Metropolitan Police Service led by Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Bridger to proceed with enquiries. This followed earlier investigations into allegations made against Deputy Commissioner Anthony Ennis which resulted in Ennis’ complete exoneration.

Martin Bridger

On 23 July, the independence and reputation of the judiciary took a blow. Chief Justice Anthony Smellie was obliged by rumours circulating in the Cayman Islands to issue an unprecedented press release concerning Judge Priya Levers. Rumours were rife that she had been suspended or was about to be terminated. The Chief Justice assured the public that she was merely away on leave. That was his statement in its entirety. Hardly reassuring when you consider that persons about to be charged or arrested are frequently sent on leave. The only shorter comment that the Chief Justice could have made was, “No comment”. It would have been no less informative and not more reassuring.

Anthony Smellie

On 5 August, Dixon was charged with two counts of misconduct in public office and two counts of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. Kernohan and Jones are still under formal investigation for possible misconduct in public office.

Rudolph Dixon

On 16 September, Governor Jack announced the appointment of a Judicial Tribunal to investigate allegations of misbehaviour in judicial office against Judge Levers. The allegations concern certain “financial irregularities”. The Tribunal will be chaired by Sir Andrew Leggatt QC, a former Justice of Appeal in the UK. Needless to say, the Governor has suspended Judge Levers while this process is taking place.

Priya Levers

Then, on 24 September, Jack announced the arrest of Judge Alexander Henderson on charges of misconduct in public office. He was held and questioned at the police station until his release the following day. It seems he was only arrested because he refused to be interviewed in the investigation into the activities of the suspended police officers. He had given a written statement, but refused to be cross-examined orally. So, they arrested him and questioned him for several hours. We all hope it was nothing more than that. The judge has an excellent reputation both in Canada and in the Cayman Islands.

Alexander Henderson

As a result, the rule of law in our sister British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands has taken some vicious body blows this year. But, there is a reassuring side to these developments. If the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will show the same guts in Anguilla as Governor Jack has shown, we may even develop some respect for that Department and its officers. That would be a new and welcome development for Anguilla.

At present, no one in Anguilla can imagine the governor pursuing allegations against any senior police officer here no matter how serious they are. The official position is that you must present “evidence” before any action will be taken. The whole point of an inquiry is that it is designed to find out if there is any evidence. After that, the law takes its course. If you already have the evidence, there is no need to hold an inquiry.

I am quite confident that no judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court will ever find himself in a similar position. The magistracy is a different matter. We all remember the stories that were circulating about certain magistrates over the past twenty years. Not one of them was ever charged with any offence, far less arrested. They were all allowed to quietly depart from Anguilla and all possible charges were dropped. No names will be mentioned, but all adults living in Anguilla at the time will know who I mean. Where was governor Jack when we needed him?

As usual, all parties mentioned are innocent of any crime until they are convicted by a jury of their peers, the good men and women of the Cayman Islands.

Court garb

Judges stop wearing wigs in courts in England. The word wig is short for ‘periwig’. That word derives from the French ‘perruque’. The fashion for men to wear the powdered white wig we know so well came from the court of Louis XIV of France. It spread to English society during the reign of Charles II of Britain in the late 17 century.

When men wearing wigs went out of fashion during the reign of George III, judges and barristers continued to wear them in court. Judges wore the shoulder-length ‘full bottom’ wig until the 1780s. From that period, they adopted for civil trials the smaller wig with a tail at the back. From the 1840s the small ‘bench wig’, used by English judges up to today, took over for criminal trials. A judge’s court wig costs around EC$4,000, while a full-bottomed wig would set you back over $10,000.

Today, 1 October, is the first day for new judicial garb in the UK. Judges will appear in civil courts from now on dressed in a simple robe and without wigs.

The reform was not haphazardly done. There was consultation with the public, the bar, and the judiciary. The conclusion Lord Phillips, the Chief Justice, came to was that wigs make English judges look out of touch. Some even went so far as to say that the old horse hair wigs made judges look ridiculous.

Of course, we in the West Indies long ago gave up wearing wigs to court. We abolished the wig in 1972 for both the bench and bar. A few of the older lawyers still have them. My old barrister's wig only gets used when the High School has a play to put on that needs a borrowed wig.

So, in some ways, the English judges are only now catching up with our judges. But, in other ways they have gone further. Instead of the old fashioned stuff gowns and silk gowns that our judges and lawyers still wear, they will wear a simple European-style black robe fastened with Velcro.

They will continue to wear wigs in criminal trials. They say they hope it gives them a degree of anonymity should they ever meet a convict in the street!