THE EDITOR: Since the pronouncement by the Privy Council on the Justice Marcia Ayers-Caesar issue, there have been calls in several diverse corners for an investigation into the conduct of the Chief Justice (CJ) for, among other things, his role in the Ayers-Caesar fiasco in April 2017, which led to her premature resignation, and his failure to keep separate and distinct his role as (1) chairman of the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, (2) as Chief Justice, and (3) as a senior judicial and 'pastoral adviser' to Ayers-Caesar.

The esteemed Israel Khan SC has unconventionally staged a protest, with placard, at the entrance of the Hall of Justice calling for the CJ's immediate resignation.

The Assembly of Southern Lawyers has, less dramatically, called for an investigation into the CJ's role into the whole commission/Ayers-Caesar affair.

The Law Association of TT, in its media release (March 25) following the ruling, has acknowledged, in a somewhat guarded tone, that the failure on the part of the commission and the CJ to recognise the importance of judicial autonomy is a matter of 'serious concern,' adding that the issues giving rise to the legal proceedings still remain unresolved.

Before the court of public opinion makes a pronouncement for or against the Chief Justice (he being the only person sitting from the then commission), it is imperative to be aware of the following matters:

Our apex court (which represents, in the words of the late Sir Fenton Ramsahoye in a statement dated July 9, 2015, 'a judicial alliance between the people of Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom,') admirably traced the meanings of 'inability' and 'misbehaviour' of a judge to trigger the constitutional impeachment under section 137 in relation to the conduct in carrying out her duties; the perception created by the manner in which the judge performed her functions; and whether the office of the judge would be brought into disrepute.

The Privy Council recognised also that 'public confidence in the judicial system' and 'the integrity of the judiciary is of utmost importance in a modern democratic society.'

The law lords unanimously found that the judge's conduct may have constituted 'inability' to fall into the requirement needed by our President under section 137 to begin the process. This was due to (1) Justice Ayers-Caesar's seeming inability to manage her caseload prior to her appointment, (2) her conduct in relation to those part-heard/outstanding cases leading up to her appointment as a judge, and (3) her acceptance of the appointment, leaving those outstanding matters uncompleted.

To put in simple language, this meant that the failure of Ayers-Caesar in not completing her 52 cases in the Magistrate's Court, affecting the lives and freedoms of these accused people and not bothering to inform the commission of her backlog, but simultaneously accepting the judicial elevation, could in theory be considered unbecoming behaviour for a judge and could bring the judiciary into disrepute. It might also have af