Law Association President Douglas Mendez

A vote by members of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago, to have Chief Justice Ivor Archie impeached.

The lawyers yesterday voted to send a letter to Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, asking that he trigger Section 137 of the constitution to begin impeachment proceedings.

The Law Association held a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing yesterday and 150 mem­bers vot­ed for and 32 against a res­o­lu­tion to send the mat­ter to the Prime Minister.

President of the association, Douglas Mendes S.C. told reporters the decision of the membership has meaning.

Members reviewed the re­port com­piled by Senior Counsel Ea­mon Har­ri­son Courte­nay and Fran­cis Alex­is.

The two were hired by the as­so­ci­a­tion to probe long-standing al­le­ga­tions made against the Chief Justice.

The majority of lawyers agreed that the contents of the report carried enough weight to seek to get the Chief Justice out of office.

They feel the evidence against Justice Archie is enough for the Prime Minister to trigger the impeachment process.

Speaking on the Morning Show on i95.5fm today, Senior Counsel Martin Daly, who attended the meeting, said the outcome is critical.

Late last year there was a se­ries of news­pa­per re­ports which ac­cused Justice Archie of at­tempt­ing to per­suade judges to change their state-pro­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty in favour of a pri­vate com­pa­ny where his friend and con­vict­ed fraud­ster Dil­lian John­son worked.

Justice Archie was al­so ac­cused of al­leged­ly at­tempt­ing to fast-track Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion ap­pli­ca­tions for his friends.

The Chief Justice on­ly re­spond­ed to the al­le­ga­tions once, where he de­nied dis­cussing judges’ se­cu­ri­ty but ad­mit­ted to sug­gest­ing per­sons for HDC hous­ing.