Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Yonette Cummings-Edwards and the new Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will soon have to decide whether they can review a list of judges for promotion which had been put together by the previous JSC.
Former attorney general Anil Nandlall does not believe that this is possible and he further argues that the manner in which President David Granger treated the original list of promotions supplied to him was tantamount to the President determining which judges should be promoted.
In May last year, the JSC, under the chairmanship of now retired acting Chancellor Carl Singh, had submitted a list of four nominees—two for the Court of Appeal and two for the High Court—to President Granger but he did not act on the recommendations. Nearly a year has gone by and observers say it appeared that the government was waiting for the retirement of Justices Singh and Ian Chang and for a recomposing of the JSC. That is now possible with the recent appointments of Justice Cummings-Edwards and acting Chief Justice Roxane George.