Bar President Defends Judge:

By Quincy Parker -
Nassau, Bahamas:

President of the Bahamas Bar Association Wayne Munroe said Monday it is "reprehensible" and "unprofessional" that Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson, who as the leader of the Bahamas Bar ought to be defending members of the judiciary from her parliamentary colleagues, would herself attack a sitting judge.

Mr. Munroe made that assertion in defense of Supreme Court Justice John Lyons, whose controversial judgments, Pratt and Williams, and Moss and Bahama Reef, were the subject of a recent address in parliament by the attorney general.

Mr. Munroe’s remarks were in response to a third landmark judgment handed down by Justice Lyons on Monday, in which the judge calls on the attorney general to resign if the appeal of his judgments finds that he did not in fact mislead the public.

Mr. Munroe reiterated that it is Mrs. Maynard Gibson’s constitutional duty to protect the judges.

"It’s like I’m supposed to protect my child, so I decide to just beat the hell out of my child for no good reason. That’s the equivalent," Mr. Munroe said. "It is unprofessional conduct. It is a type of conduct that causes people like me, who may have judicial aspiration, to stop and consider whether or not we would be prepared to put up with that nonsense.

"And I’m persuaded that that’s what prevents a lot of persons from going to the bench. The pay is a small thing. Regardless of how much they raise it to, you’re still going to take a pay cut to go on the bench."

Mrs. Maynard Gibson’s claimed during her address in the House of Assembly last Wednesday that Justice Lyons "misled" the Bahamian public in those rulings, which accused the government of breaking the law, questioned the independence of the judiciary and charged Cabinet with plunging The Bahamas into a constitutional crisis.

Mrs. Maynard Gibson said the judge misled the public when he asserted that no review of the judges’ salaries and pensions had been undertaken during the Christie administration’s term in office.

"Judges cannot defend themselves. Judges depend on the Bar to defend them. The leader of the Bar is the attorney general; I am just the president of the Bar Association," Mr. Munroe explained.

"The person who is supposed to be defending the judges is the very person attacking the judge when she knows he cannot respond."

Mr. Munroe noted that Mrs. Maynard Gibson received Justice Lyons’ ruling in the extradition of Samuel "90" Knowles to the United States to answer drug charges "with open arms" and mentioned that it was her duty to protect the court from embarrassment.

He said he saw no danger of Justice Lyons having to resign, because "every step they take is an admission that he is correct."

"Nobody seems to be noticing, for instance, that in her communication to the House of Assembly, the attorney general more or less admitted that much of what the judge said is accurate, and they must have admitted it, because they went out of their way and appointed a Judicial Review Commission – the thing that the judge said they hadn’t properly done," Mr. Munroe said.

If Supreme Court Justice Lyons is correct in a new ruling he issued early Monday, perhaps no judges ought to be sitting anywhere in The Bahamas.

Mr. Munroe reiterated his assertion that Justice Lyons raises very real, important issues in his controversial rulings.

bahamian law