Bical Bank head protests over re-assignment of judges

The former head of the defunct Bical Bank, Cecil Pace, this morning filed a judicial protest against the Prime Minister and the Attorney General complaining that a number of cases in which he was a party had been reassigned to another judge without valid reason at law.

Mr Pace said there were 20 civil cases involving him and the bank, which had been pending for many years.

It had been agreed between the parties that a considerable number of sittings would be held within a short period of time in order to conclude the proceedings.

It had resulted, however, that the Chief Justice had re-assigned all the cases to another judge.

Mr Pace said that while the Chief Justice had the authority to assign cases, it was unprecedented for cases to be reassigned to a new judge while they were in progress or were awaiting judgement.

This, Mr Pace said, violated his right to a fair hearing after he was, 40 years ago, divested of his private property and a substantial amount of assets.