| – submits resignationBy Michael JordanChief Magistrate Juliet Holder-Allen resigned from the bench yesterday, ending her four-year-battle to be reinstated to active duty.Mrs. Holder-Allen submitted her resignation at around 11:00 hrs at the Court of Appeal to the secretary of Chief Justice Carl Singh.The resignation is effective from September 15 and Holder-Allen said that she will be seeking all benefits due her, while also seeking substantial damages from the Judicial Services Commission.Speaking to journalists afterwards outside the Court of Appeal, the former Chief Magistrate also delivered a scathing attack on the Commission, which she accused of “high-handed” action in having her removed from active duty in 2004.Former Chief Magistrate Juliet Holder-Allen Holder-Allen said that she had some 20 more years of service before retiring, but the Commission’s actions had stymied her chances for further promotion.“Their actions have been such that they denied me all promotional opportunities. They have denied me the ability to even represent myself in the face of malicious accusations. They have operated in a way which shows clearly that they just want me gone.“I have been Chief Magistrate for about eight years. I have worked hard and I consider myself very competent. I am not corrupt, I am not immoral. Clearly anybody with my qualifications and with seniority should have gone ahead.“They have been disrespectful…in how they have been treating me. I am not a second class citizen…I am a first-class citizen and I demand to be treated that way.”The stunning development came just two days after the embattled Chief Magistrate had revealed to Kaieteur News her decision to resign by year-end, rather than seek reinstatement by the Commission.Mrs. Holder said that, under the circumstances, the decision to resign was not a difficult one to make.“It was quite easy…I have had enough of their (the Judicial Services Commission’s) behaviour.“I am at the age where I can take early retirement, which means that I don’t have to give a month’s notice,Atlanta Falcons Jersey, but I would certainly want them to start making up my benefits.”The former Chief Magistrate also expressed disappointment that most of her colleagues had not displayed the will to support her in the fight to be reinstated.“I think that some of them don’t know how to fight,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, and some of them don’t want to fight. Everybody thinks the easy way is to go with the flow, but they don’t realize that the flow can become a torrent…”“What they have been doing is making a situation more difficult for me to fight by going with the flow.I don’t know what has happened to deaden the senses of the profession, but the senses are dead.The response to injustice…is not there. The response to a colleague who needs,Jerseys From China, perhaps, the benefit of the profession…is not there.”Mrs. Holder-Allen also re-affirmed her intentions to enter the political arena, in an attempt to stem what she perceived to be a high level of corruption in the society.“You know what is right and wrong,Jerseys NFL Wholesale China, what is legal and illegal, and the amount of illegality that is besieging your senses (in Guyana) is too much.“There are two things that you can do and they are leave Guyana or take some action to see if you can fix it.Politics is about life. Politics is about society, so the only way that you can think about fixing it (the society) is by going into politics.”The Judicial Services Commission removed Mrs. Holder-Allen from her active duty in 2004,Arizona Diamondbacks Fernando Rodney Jersey, in the wake of allegations levelled against her.One allegation was levelled by former Chancellor of the Judiciary,Cheap Jerseys Online, Madam Desiree Bernard; another by Acting Magistrate Bertlyn Reynolds, and another by former Minister Bibi Shadick.However, there was no documented evidence before the Judicial Service Commission, and Chancellor Bernard later said that she never filed a complaint.In the wake of a letter signed by the Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission, Mrs. Holder-Allen filed a challenge against Chief Justice Carl Singh, who had decided to proceed with the judicial inquiry.Mrs. Holder-Allen charged that it was illegal for him to represent the persons who had filed the complaint against her while also presiding in the case.She also challenged the propriety of some members of the Commission. Justice William Ramlal, however, ruled that the challenges by the Chief Magistrate were without merit.Mrs. Holder-Allen appealed, but she said that she withdrew her appeal about a month ago, clearing the way for the hearing against her to proceed. However, she has received no notice from the Judicial Service Commission, Mrs. Holder-Allen alleged.She said that the notice of discontinuance of the appeal was duly filed and served on all of the parties concerned, including the Judicial Services Commission.“Instead of setting up their tribunal and summoning their witnesses, as they were “champing at the bit” to do, there has been nothing but a deafening silence,” Holder-Allen had told Kaieteur News on Sunday. |
