The is­sue of at­tract­ing the best can­di­dates for the ju­di­cia­ry needs to be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly. It has be­come quite ap­par­ent that the UK is anx­ious to re­lieve it­self of be­ing the fi­nal court of ap­peal (Privy Coun­cil) in the re­gion. It is on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore those of us who still choose to cling to the moth­er­land's cloak will re­ceive the boot. This mes­sage was elo­quent­ly de­liv­ered to an ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence by Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal, for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mon­wealth, at a lec­ture se­ries last Sep­tem­ber. Re­fer­ring to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, re­porter Keino Swamber quotes, "Must we wait for such evic­tion when we have al­ready built for Caribbean law so fine a dwelling here?"

It is there­fore im­per­a­tive that qual­i­ty judges be ap­point­ed with a view to fur­ther el­e­va­tion to the CCJ. This can on­ly be achieved with prop­er re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages in­clud­ing en­hanced re­tire­ment ben­e­fits. It is in the in­ter­est of all prac­tis­ing lawyers (spear­head­ed by their as­so­ci­a­tion) that they ac­tive­ly be­come in­volved in lob­by­ing for the above to take ef­fect, lest they find them­selves ap­pear­ing be­fore ju­rists lack­ing in com­pe­tence to give a fair hear­ing.

James God­dard

Mar­aval