ATTORNEY General and Legal Affairs Minister, Basil Williams, has committed to resolving the issue with High Court Judge, Justice Franklin Holder, but blamed the entire episode on what he termed the “iniquity of Anil Nandlall.”

“The Judge and I will resolve the issue,” the Attorney General told reporters at his Carmichael Street Office on Wednesday, while speaking briefly on the matter. In a letter to the Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards on March 24, 2017, Justice Holder called for a genuine and meaningful apology to be made by Williams in open court. The issue had come to the fore when Nandlall claimed that Williams had threatened to kill Justice Holder, causing the judge to walk off the bench–an allegation which has since been denied by the Attorney General.

In the letter to Justice Cummings-Edwards, Justice Holder said he left the bench last week Thursday because of an alleged statement made by Williams, which is: “I could say what I want to say and however I want to say it, I have always been like that.” The judge said he found the statement to be egregious.
“Immediately after hearing these words, I rose from the bench and went into my chambers. I did not adjourn the matter, nor did I give any instructions to the parties,” Justice Holder mentioned in his letter of complaint.

Justice Holder said he felt disrespected.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning by the Attorney General’s Chambers, Minister Williams thanked Justice Holder for exposing what he described as the iniquity of Nandlall, even as he empathised with the High Court Judge “for the unrelenting torture he was subjected to that morning by Nandlall.”

The Attorney General is contending that he may have been a victim of “transferred frustration.” “The Attorney General believes that, after nearly three hours of ‘barracking’ by Nandlall any reasonable person could fall prey to ‘transferred frustration.’ Perhaps his detaining the Learned Judge again as he was preparing to leave the Bench, seeking clarity on whether the witness’ answer of ‘no’ was recorded, induced certain misapprehensions in the Judge’s mind in all the circumstances and the Attorney General became the victim of ‘transferred frustration,’” the statement said.

However, it said that the Attorney General “is not unprepared to work with the Learned Judge to resolve what was a fleeting engagement after the business of the day was completed.”

Minister Williams posited that the case ought to have been conducted in a Court Room with a ‘Voice Verbatim Digital Recording System’ given that it involved a challenge to the decisions of the top two leaders of the country –the President and Prime Minister.

“Millions of dollars were supposed to have been spent by the last Government (donor money) to acquire one,” he pointed out.

It was noted that such a system would give a Court, a verbatim record of its proceedings and an immediate print out if required. “Nandlall would have been unable to have all the Judges gathered on his allegations, where a verbatim record existed,” he posited, contending that as a result, both he and Justice Holder were left exposed to the “Crassness” of Nandlall. The Attorney General is expected to respond based on the Letter of Complaint issued to the Chancellor (ag) from Justice Holder.