Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Carl Singh today refused to say whether background checks were conducted on Rabi Sukul before his appointment to the Court of Appeal.

“That that is a matter that engaged the attention of the Judicial Service Commission [JSC] and we are not open to discussing the methodologies on how we function,” Singh bluntly stated when questioned by reporters after a special sitting of the Caribbean Court of Justice to honour Madame Justice Desiree Bernard.

Sukul, who was sworn in as a Court of Appeal judge by President Donald Ramotar last July, was asked to resign from the post after it was discovered that the England and Wales Bar Council had disbarred him for intentionally misleading his client by drafting false grounds of appeal in a drugs case.

Acting Chancellor Carl Singh (Stabroek News file photo)

Singh, who heads the JSC, did confirm that Sukul has resigned. A statement issued by his office on Saturday had said he had requested Sukul’s immediate resignation upon learning of his disbarment.

However, the development, seen as a huge embarrassment for the judiciary, has given rise to questions about the circumstances that led to Sukul’s appointment as well as concerns about the constitutional arrangements governing the JSC and its methods of operation.

Asked today if he was one of the persons who recommended Sukul for the post, Singh only said, “I didn’t recommend him. I was part of a commission that considered his application.”

Under Article 197 of the constitution, the JSC could petition the President for the removal of a judge and the President could appoint a tribunal to investigate which would then advise him on whether or not to remove. This procedure has been employed before and attorney and chartered accountant Christopher Ram, in an article on the situation titled ‘An embarrassment rather than a celebration,’ noted that the Chancellor’s Office has not offered any reason for seeking Sukul’s resignation as opposed to moving to have him removed in accordance with the Constitution.

Asked what stopped the JSC from removing Sukul by way of the constitution as oppose to just opting for him to resign, Singh responded, “I am not sure that I opted to have him resign.”

When told that a release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) indicated that he asked Sukul to resign as opposed to him having resigned voluntarily, Singh responded, “Of course. If I recognise that something irregular has taken place, we are lawyers, the judge understands that something irregular has taken place and when he admitted to the facts of his disbarment, I said then that my request to you is to resign.”

Asked why the JSC did not petition for Sukul’s removal in keeping with constitutional provisions, Singh said such a move was “a recourse if a person recognised that he is confronted with a circumstance that warrants his resignation. If there is a voluntary resignation, then there is no need for the constitutional mechanisms to be employed.”

Ram has argued that an inquiry should be set up into the appointment. “If the Chancellor’s call for the resignation and Justice Sukul’s compliance were seen to be the end of the matter, they would invite all kinds of speculation by a justifiably skeptical public,” he charged.

He said that for the public to be satisfied, the action by the Chancellor “leaves no option but for the President who appoints and removes judges to set up an Inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the appointment of Justice Sukul. Such an Inquiry will necessarily exclude the three ex officio members of the Commission and must have the power to subpoena records and persons. We have to make sure that the architecture that permitted this travesty to occur is dismantled.”

President of the Guyana Bar Association (GBA) Ronald Burch-Smith following the disbarment had expressed hope that background checks were done before Sukul had been appointed and that the issue related to his disbarment only arose afterward.

The Law Society Gazette has reported that the London bar’s disciplinary tribunal heard that Sukul, of Balham Chambers, London, drafted a document to the Court of Appeal (in the UK) setting out initial grounds for an appeal against conviction on behalf of his client, L, who had been convicted of drugs-related offences. “The tribunal found he had created the document, knowing it to be false, with the intention of misleading L into believing he had grounds to appeal his conviction, when Sukul knew there were no grounds of appeal,” the publication, which was dated February 5, 2014, said.

It was explained that a five-person tribunal, chaired by Michael Baker QC, found unanimously that Sukul, a London barrister had intentionally misled his client and engaged in conduct “likely to bring the legal profession into disrepute.” As such, it was stated, Sukul was ordered to be disbarred.

The decision is open to appeal, the publication said.