STATING THAT HE was driven to set the record straight and clear his name, former Chief Justice Sir David Simmons is today taking issue with recent statements made by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart on the floor of Parliament.
Speaking during last Tuesday’s debate on a $3.6 million supplementary resolution for the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Prime Minister informed the House that during his tenure which ended last January, Sir David had given a “practice direction” with regard to the new way in which land title suits should be processed.
He also took the position that “a practice direction had to rest on something . . . and that something is called law”.
In further defending the decision of staffers in the Registry who had stopped processing any new title suits, the Prime Minister insisted that without the passing of corresponding legislation, that “practice direction” had no value.
But Sir David has categorically denied he ever issued any such practice direction.
In a clear-the-air statement sent to the SUNDAY SUN, he also said the Prime Minister had created the impression that he (Sir David) had acted “whimsically or without legal authority – which, of course, I did not, since I never issued any practice direction”.
“I had hoped that I would never have had to defend my tenure as Chief Justice in the Press. However, I am driven to set the historical record straight conscious that where an inaccurate statement gains a head-start on the truth, the latter has to make a massive effort to catch up,” the statement said.
He also pointed out that under the Supreme Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, a practice direction did indeed “rest on something called law” and therefore “is not some illusory concoction of a Chief Justice”.
He noted that as far back as 2004, the Judicial Council of Barbados had established a sub-committee of judges and attorneys-at-law, under the chairmanship of the now deceased Justice Colin Williams, to devise a new procedure for providing good title to land without a title.
That sub-committee prepared a draft bill, which Sir David said he circulated before going on pre-retirement leave on January 20, 2010, but is yet to be approved.
