Last Sunday, I asked the question, how effective has the expiring state of emergency been and what next?
At the time of writing this column the Government was proceeding to have the House of Representatives pass a resolution to extend the state of emergency for a further period of three months. Only a simple majority in the House of Representatives is required for this particular extension.
The expiring state of emergency was first declared on July 18, 2025 and was valid for 15 days. It was extended for three months by a resolution passed in the House of Representatives on July 28.
Inevitably we have been bombarded with partisan messages about the "success" of the first period of the state of emergency and the purpose for which the further extension has now been sought. At the core of the bombardment are purported inferences from the significantly lower murder rate and other statistics, but examination of the touted success requires time to consider what was said in the House of Representatives on Friday last and to take time to re-examine what was previously said in the House.
This consideration cannot be diverted by the remarks of party zealots. The problem is that party zealots cannot be even passable historians or commentators because their inferences from facts have to be drawn perversely to fit into a partisan message. That is why some zealots have muddled, perhaps deliberately, how the succession to the office of Chief Justice (CJ) from CJ Sharma to CJ Archie took place with the recent succession from Chief Justice Archie to Chief Justice Boodoosingh. The simple but significant factual differences between these two most recent successions to the office of CJ are set out below.
CJ Sharma retired as scheduled on the date of his reaching the mandatory retirement age in January 2008, which at that time was 65, subsequently amended to age 70 by Act No 8 of 2020 assented to in March 2020.
With that scheduled event of CJ Sharma's retirement on the calendar, there was time for the office of President to have the constitutionally required consultations, without fumbling, to have a successor CJ in place the very next day after CJ Sharma's retirement.
The recent next-day succession from CJ Archie to CJ Boodoosingh plainly did not have its origins in a scheduled departure from office. Archie had recently indicated that he would leave office before his mandatory date but did not disclose a date of leaving. Suddenly a statement appeared in the public domain on his letterhead dated October 21 that "he had indicated to the acting President that I will retire on October 22".
Acknowledging the difficulty raised by the curious path of departure that former CJ Archie took, there was nevertheless no obvious need to rush down a permanent replacement the next day to the detriment of the constitutional requirements for consultation. Was there a clandestine motive? The most senior sitting judge could have easily been appointed to act in the office of CJ for a week to permit proper consultation in fulfilment of the requirements of the Constitution.
Why therefore malign those non-aligned commentators who had a problem with the conduct of CJ Archie and Office of the President who effectively by incompetence or design bungled the required consultation? That is a low dodge, conduct typically the result of fanatical perspectives.
Let me repeat that CJ Boodoosingh was widely regarded as a person worthy to hold the office of CJ, an endorsement which I plainly gave in last week's column. I would add that in this column I welcomed his elevation to the Court of Appeal in 2020. Prior to that, in 2011, I defended the integrity of his decision in the Galbaransingh and Ferguson extradition cases.
Moreover, zealots dislike and try to denigrate retrospectives into past circumstances, which demonstrate how little politicians and their satellites learn from past mistakes and how frequently political change is exchange. The glaring current example of this is the continuing failure, described by many commentators over decades, to deal effectively with our country's infiltration by the international drug and human trafficking trade and now controversially relying on a powerful foreign ally to disrupt it for us.