The Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) has filed its notice of appeal, as it seeks to challenge the recent Appeal Court ruling that former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar was forced by Chief Justice Ivor Archie into resigning from her position as a High Court judge.
The appeal was filed and served on Ayers-Caesar’s legal team led by Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj on Wednesday.
The deadline for filing the appeal was on Thursday.
Reports state that the JLSC may apply for an extension of the 21-day stay granted by the Court of Appeal when it upheld Ayers-Caesar’s case three weeks ago, when it makes its application for leave to appeal to the Privy Council as without it (the extension), Ayers-Caesar would be entitled to resume her duties as a judge pending the eventual outcome of the final appeal.
A date for the hearing of the leave application had not been fixed by the court, up to late yesterday.
Ayers-Caesar was appointed a High Court Judge in April 2017 but two weeks later, she resigned from the post amid public criticism over the 52 cases she had left unfinished.
She then filed the lawsuit in which she claimed that she was pressured by Archie and the JLSC into resigning under the threat that her appointment would be revoked.
The senior magistrate claimed that a press release announcing her resignation was prepared by Judiciary staff before she met with Chief Justice Archie to discuss the situation and that she did not have any input.
She also contended that former President Anthony Carmona, who is also a former High Court Judge, refused to intervene after she informed him of Archie and the JLSC’s conduct.
Archie and the JLSC denied any wrongdoing and claimed that Ayers-Caesar’s failure to disclose the full extent of her unfinished case-load was sufficiently serious to warrant a disciplinary inquiry.