A lawyer representing one of the high-profile claimants who want to oust retired Justice Boyd Carey as chairman of the controversial inquiry into the financial sector meltdown of the mid-1990s yesterday described his refusal to recuse himself from the probe as “unreasonable and irrational”.

Nicole Foster-Pusey, who represents former financial secretary Shirley Tyndall, was making her opening statement before a panel of three Supreme Court judges who are presiding over a Judicial Review of Justice Carey’s decision.

The claimants — Tyndall, Former Finance Minister Omar Davies, former Finsac chairman Patrick Hylton, and the Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation Inc — are also asking the Judicial Review Court to declare the suspended Finsac inquiry null and void.

The claimants had secured the Judicial Review earlier this year after they accused him of being among the many Jamaicans who had debts with failed financial entities that had to be taken over by the Financial Sector Adjustment Company Limited (Finsac).

Carey and his wife Beverley, it is being charged, had a debt with the failed Century National Bank, which he later cleared after the entity was taken over by Finsac.

The claimants are contending that Carey is not fit to sit as chairman of the commission, which opened last September, as he is in a class of people whose treatment by Finsac the inquiry is tasked with examining.

The court was told yesterday that lawyers for the claimants wrote to Carey in December last year asking him to withdraw himself from the case because of his past involvement with Finsac, but he refused.

In outlining the grounds for the actions against the respondents — Carey, commission members Charles Ross and Worrick Bogle and commission attorney RNA Henriques — Foster-Pusey cited the importance of preserving the integrity of the commission and the obligation to a fair hearing.

“It does not matter if Mr Carey cleared his debt, part of the issue is whether debtors were treated fairly,” Foster-Pusey said.

She said that even if Carey said he was treated fairly, he still would not be in a position to sit on a panel. The perception, she said, could be given that Carey’s treatment by Finsac may cloud his judgement.

Queen’s Counsel Michael Hylton, who also appears for the claimants, told the court that Carey had made statements that suggested bias. Foster-Pusey had said earlier that statements had been made by commission members that suggested bias on their part.

Hylton is to continue making his submissions before justices Lennox Campbell, Leighton Pusey and Paulette Williams.

The claimants are seeking Henriques’ removal because he was the shareholder in a company, Premier Foods, which had a debt that was also taken over by Finsac.

Lawyers for Carey yesterday afternoon failed to have parts of the affidavit and certain documents of Janet Farrow, the Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation’s CEO, struck off the records on the grounds that they were hearsay and were improperly verified.