The Privy Council has today handed down the opinion of the seven-judge Board in Misick and others v Attorney General of the Turks and Caicos Islands [2015] UKPC 31. The Appellants, the former Premier and government ministers of the Turks and Caicos Islands, are indicted on charges of conspiracy, fraud and corruption arising out of their period in office. Their trial is scheduled to begin in December 2015, and is to be presided over by Justice Harrison, a retired Jamaican judge appointed for a two-year term. At an interlocutory hearing, Justice Harrison had decided that he would hear the trial alone, without a jury.
The appeal concerned two important issues: firstly, whether a judge appointed for a short renewable term had security of tenure sufficient to satisfy the constitutional guarantee of an independent and impartial court, and secondly whether the decision to try the case by judge alone was to be decided on the criminal standard of proof. The Appellants argued that the standard appointment of judges (including Justice Harrison) on short renewable terms created a dependence on the executive sufficient to vitiate their independence, and that the importance of trial by jury was such as to demand the application of the criminal standard.
Dismissing the appeal, the Privy Council have decided that, whatever the position as regards the generality of TCI judges, Justice Harrison’s appointment was sufficient for objective independence, and that the standard of proof has no application to interlocutory applications not bearing on guilt or innocence, unless there is a specific factual precondition. The case contains important dicta on the requirements of judicial independence in the context of ad hoc judicial appointments and on wider issues of the application of the standard of proof to interlocutory decisions.
James Goudie KC and Rupert Paines appeared for the Appellants with Mark Fulford of the TCI Bar, instructed by Theo Solley of Sheridans and Mark Fulford of F Chambers.
