By FARRAH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
fjohnson@tribunemedia.net
A SUPREME Court judge yesterday denied a magistrate’s request to strike out a statement of claim made by a lawyer who was detained at the Magistrate’s Court after the judicial officer found her guilty of contempt four years ago.
Attorney Ramona Farquharson launched legal action against a sitting magistrate and the Office of the Attorney General, who are listed as the first and second defendants in the matter, after she was arrested and held in the prisoner’s dock at the Magistrate’s Court for several hours following the magistrate’s ruling that she was guilty of contempt of court.
According to court documents, the contempt finding was a result of a “verbal exchange” between Mrs Farquharson and the stipendiary and circuit magistrate in 2017 after the judicial officer “allegedly refused to allow certain documents into evidence”.
“The defendants allege that the plaintiff was belligerent, rude and derogatory, while the plaintiff alleges that the first defendant uttered words that were malicious and calculated to disparage and cause damage to her in her profession,” according to the court documents. “As a result, the plaintiff claims the first defendant’s actions were abusive, malicious and/or wrongful and without reasonable or probable cause which injured her reputation as an attorney-at-law and caused her to suffer loss and damage.”
In view of these facts, Mrs Farquharson sought damages for injury to reputation, breach of her constitutional rights, wrongful arrest and false detention, as well as aggravated and exemplary damages.
The magistrate and attorney general recently sought to strike out the lawyer’s action after arguing that the magistrate was protected by “judicial immunity”, which meant there could be “no civil action brought against her in her capacity as a magistrate’’ and “by extension, no claim could exist against the attorney general.”
In her ruling, Justice G Diane Stewart said the two issues for the court to determine were whether Mrs Farquharson’s claims could be struck out as a result of “no reasonable cause of action” as set out in the amended statement of claim and whether her claims could be struck out for being an “abuse of process pursuant to Order 18 Rule 19 (1)(d)”.
After reviewing the circumstances of the case, the judge said she could not determine whether the magistrate “exceeded her judicial powers” when she found Mrs Farquharson in contempt without testing the evidence and reviewing the laws during a trial. She also noted that if a representative of the state was accused of breaching a constitutional right, the attorney general, as the “legal representative of the state”, would be the appropriate party to “defend such an action”.
“I therefore find that… that the first defendant’s contention that it has an absolute defence against the plaintiff’s claims in tort as she was acting in a judicial capacity when she exchanged words with the plaintiff, is an issue that must be addressed at trial,” Justice Stewart stated. “Accordingly, I do not accede to the defendant’s application to strike her from the action.”
She added: “I do not accede to the defendant’s application to strike the second defendant therefrom and accordingly, the claim against the second defendant remains. The plaintiff’s action for constitutional relief is not an abuse of the process of the court as an appeal would not have remedied the first defendant’s decision to imprison the plaintiff after a finding of contempt.”
Justice Stewart said a case management conference will be scheduled with both parties at “the convenience of the court” at which time she would hear both parties on the issue of costs.
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