By: Staff Writer
September 23, 2025
Trinidad and Tobago’s Chief Justice, Ivor Archie, has decided to retire from the bench. The exact date of his retirement is not yet revealed, but Archie is now 65 and five years out from the new mandatory retirement age of 70.
Archie, who was first appointed chief justice on January 24, 2008, has served in his capacity with distinction, but with particular bumps along the way.
His Wikipedia entry said that on 1 March 1998, he was appointed a puisine judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature. He became a Justice of Appeal on 2 April 2004, and chief justice on 24 January 2008. He is the eighth chief justice of Trinidad and Tobago and the youngest person to have taken the role. He is Chairman of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Judicial Education Institute, and a fellow of the Board of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute.[1] In 2013, he received the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Additionally, he lost a legal battle to prevent the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) from investigating allegations over his “close ties” to Dillian Johnson, a gay man[7] and convicted felon who fled Trinidad after surviving an attempted shooting. LATT conducted its investigation and voted to report Archie to the Prime Minister, who has sole authority in Trinidad and Tobago for recommending discipline and removal of judges. Then Prime Minister Keith Rowley declined to pursue impeachment, saying that he had been advised there was a “lack of evidence”.
Johnson had fled to the United Kingdom and applied for political asylum, fearing for his life that he would be assassinated.
In its decision to grant Johnson asylum, the UK said there is a reasonable degree of likelihood that he would face a “real risk” of serious harm if he returned to Trinidad.
Meanwhile, a leaked, sworn police affidavit made by a witness has now surfaced, which identifies individuals who are said to have organised the assassination attempt on Johnson.
Johnson, too, has a colourful past. He was being investigated by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) for an alleged overtime and attendance fraud scheme at WASA. But Johnson, once a manager at the water authority, landed in Newport Magistrates’ Court after his former employer launched a private prosecution. He was also accused of committing offences under the UK’s Communications Act by posting offensive TikTok and Facebook videos about two WASA employees.
It was also alleged that Johnson had initially met Archie over his WASA related case.